Precautions for Wireless AP deployment

A wireless access Point (AP) is a wireless switch used in a wireless network and is also the core of a wireless network. When deploying a Wireless AP, in order to prevent various faults, you should master some basic precautions to ensure that no problems occur when deploying the Wireless AP. This article summarizes 10 precautions from practice, we hope to help you plan the Wireless AP deployment.

1. Fill in the warranty card to protect your rights and interests

When deploying a Wireless AP, You need to spend some time filling out the warranty information for the newly purchased Wireless AP device. In particular, it is more necessary for new devices to deploy wireless APs. instead of relying solely on previous experience, we believe that the quality of Wireless AP devices is very high. In six months to one year, it is difficult for anyone to protect these devices without any problems. Filling in warranty information is the only way to protect your future product maintenance benefits.

2. Adjust the signal strength as needed

Some Wireless AP devices allow users to adjust their signal strength through the network. Most users generally use the maximum signal strength for running, but considering that the requirements for wireless signal strength vary in different scenarios, for example, there may be no need for too much wireless coverage in the parking lot. Therefore, we need to carefully consider the coverage required by the wireless network, then adjust the actual signal strength.

3. provide backup power for Wireless AP

The wireless network administrator must provide backup power (UPS) support for all wireless APs. Only in this way can the wireless network still run normally when the main power supply fails.

This is a very important issue. The first is to prevent accidents caused by major power failures. Second, the power supply should be restarted after a sudden shutdown for one or two seconds. For wireless connections, this situation is enough to cause network disconnection. In addition, battery-powered laptops or mobile devices are used by a large number of users to connect to wireless networks. These devices will not be affected by temporary power outages. Therefore, most wireless devices have the function of automatically re-establishing lost connections. If identity authentication is enabled for users in the network settings, before being re-authenticated, everyone will be blocked from the backend network resources. This leads to numerous phone calls to ask questions.

4. give full play to the security functions of Wireless AP itself

At present, even for low-end Wireless AP, there are also many security features. This makes the vast majority of wireless APS allow administrators to restrict network access by using MAC addresses. Some wireless APS also provide an alert mechanism to send alerts by email when users attempt to connect to the network repeatedly using the wrong password. Therefore, in the actual deployment of Wireless AP, it is necessary for the user to have a comprehensive understanding of the security functions provided by the Wireless AP device, in order to effectively optimize the network through the features provided by the device.

5. Use meaningful SSID

Many information technology experts recommend disabling the SSID broadcast of Wireless AP. However, for hackers, even if the SSID is not broadcasted, it is easy to detect. To solve this problem, we recommend that you use the SSID name containing the specific meaning. The advantage of doing so is that users who connect to the wireless network for the first time can clearly determine whether they have connected to the correct network.

6. Treat wireless connection as an insecure Mode

A major advantage of a wireless network is that users can access the network without physically connecting to the device. Therefore, it is necessary to encrypt the network. We recommend that you use a more secure approach. Trust all users connected to the wireless network directly. The correct way is to regard the wireless network as an Internet connection. Only users who have been verified by VPN or similar mechanisms can be allowed to access the entire network wirelessly.

7. prevent overlapping DHCP scopes

In the past, a company purchased a Second Wireless AP to improve the coverage of wireless networks. At the same time, a technician without practical experience is notified that the device must be set the same as other access points. As a result, both access points adopt the same DHCP scope configuration. Fortunately, the Access Point will view IP address conflicts on the network before the IP address lease is assigned. Otherwise, the direct consequence is that overlapping DHCP scopes within the coverage scope may cause a lot of trouble for end users.

8. Reset the initial password of the Wireless AP.

After the Wireless AP is deployed, the first thing to do is to reset the internal password. Otherwise, anyone who uses the Internet to obtain the default password may directly access the Access Point configuration interface.

9. Try to select an Ethernet Power Supply Mode for the access device

To ensure the widest coverage of wireless networks, many companies prefer to deploy wireless APS on top of the ceiling or similar positions. This makes it difficult for the access point to connect to the power supply. There are two solutions to this problem: one is to use a power extension line and the other is to use an Ethernet power supply (PoE. We recommend that you use the second solution. You can use an unused Ethernet port to power the access point. For network devices, connecting the end of the network cable to a dedicated PoE module can avoid the trouble of using wires.

10. Do not place the Wireless AP close to the metal.

When deploying a Wireless AP, you must note that the actual location of the AP should not be subject to radio interference. Once there was such a case, the customer found that the wireless network could not work normally, and then consulted the relevant departments, after providing the specific location of the Access Point, technicians found that the user's access point device was located at the top of the steel girder under the metal roof. Therefore, the surrounding metal materials cause serious interference to radio signals. After adjusting the access point location, the existing problems are solved immediately. Therefore, when deploying a Wireless AP, we should try to avoid deploying the device near the metal structure.