[Danoir]

Hello,

I am the administrator for my parents' home network. They have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. It takes the signal from a Comcast cable modem and sends it via Cat-45 to a iMac 333, and then 801.11g signal to a iBook G4 and a PC with a wireless card. So far, there is no security on the connection and we would like to change that.

However, I have encountered a few issues. I tried logging into the router via web interface and turning on WEP. When I enable the 10-digit hex with the passphrase, everything goes fine on the router side, but the iBook I am using to test the login fails. It says the passphrase is incorrect. When I change the router setting back to no security, it all runs just fine.

Does anyone have this model router or something similar and have gotten WEP to work? Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to enter in the 10-digit hex key somewhere?

Thanks,
D

[John Strung]

The passphrase will work only with another LinkSys device. LinkSys devices use proprietary software to turn passphrases into WEP codes. Both devices need the same proprietary software.

To connect from the Mac, make a note of the 10 digit WEP key (i.e. the hex number) generated by the passphrase and put that into the Mac's Airport software. If you have the newer version of the software that allows you to specify whether the key is ASCII or HEX, choose HEX. If you have the older version of the software, put a $ sign in front of the WEP key to tell the Mac that it is HEX, not ASCII.