Re: [gentoo-user] Locking down a wireless network

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
> My Gentoo router's wireless network is encrypted via WPA and doesn't
> DHCP.  I'd like to take this a step further in case my WPA key gets
> hacked.  Can I issue only certain IPs to certain MAC addresses?
>
> Does WPA2 require hardware support?
>
> - Grant

My LinkSys wireless router supports MAC address filtering. I can add a
MAC address to the allowed list and disallow everything else. It works
for us so far, until someone manages to somehow find out an allowed
MAC address and pretends to be that address. I'll deal with that
should it ever happen. Unlikely I think...

It is a little extra work adding a new device in as I have to discover
its address but that's OK with me.

I don't think is typically done in hardware as the specs change and
hardware designers are reluctant to put the gates in. More likely it's
done in firmware on a router like mine, or software if you're using
some Gentoo box to do a job like this.

- Mark