Amiga and MAC-address filtering

[Depeche72]

Hi!
I just joined this forum so I'm new here.
Have recently started to use my Amiga again after many many years.
Have also started upgrading quite a bit with new accelerator card and Indivision MKII and some other stuff.
I'm really enjoying to use the Amiga again after 20 years or so.

My question now is if anyone have got network working with just Mac-address filtering.
For me it's safe enough and have mac-filtering for all the other Wireless things I have.
One reason is that it's very easy to get working and also I get a lot better speed with only MAC-filtering.
For some reason it doesn't seem to work with my Amiga.

I have a Netgear MA401 PCMCIA card in the Amiga.
It works good with WEP but I would really like to use only MAC-filtering.
Now I have to change in my router everytime I want network on Amiga.
Anyone with experience with MAC-filtering ?

[mark_k]

Do you mean you want to set your wireless access point to be unencrypted, but enter the MAC addresses of your equipment in an attempt to prevent other people using your internet connection?

[Depeche72]

Yes I currently have Security Mode disabled in my router and just use Wireless Mac filter to get my devices connected to my network/internet.

I have added my Amiga or my two Amigas Mac-adresses to the list in the router (because I have two of them) but none of them gets connected to the network.

Is there maybe something special I need to do to get an Amiga working with just Mac-filtering ? Or maybe it's not possible ?

[mark_k]

Hopefully someone with actual experience of using PCMCIA Wifi cards with Amigas can help with that. However as long as you have entered the correct MAC address in your router, I don't think you'd need to do anything special on the Amiga side.

Or, perhaps the Amiga-side driver software uses a hard-coded/random/whatever fake MAC address, not the one printed on the PCMCIA card itself???

Can you get the Amiga working if you disable MAC address filtering on your router?

[Depeche72]

Yes it works fine if I choose Security Mode: WEP.
It's ok but everytime I want network on my Amigas I have to activate WEP in the router.
I could leave it at WEP if it wasn't that the speed difference is huge between WEP and just using MAC-filter.

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by Depeche72

Yes it works fine if I choose Security Mode: WEP.
It's ok but everytime I want network on my Amigas I have to activate WEP in the router.
I could leave it at WEP if it wasn't that the speed difference is huge between WEP and just using MAC-filter.

Please don't enable WEP. It's so easy to crack.

MAC filtering won't help because the attacker can see the MAC address of your clients and simply change their MAC address.

Can't you get a WPA card? I can't image they are expensive...

[crazyc]

Or a couple of powerline adapters and an ethernet card

Sent from my S7 Edge

[Depeche72]

No I won't enable WEP permanently.
I just do it now when I want network on my Amigas.
Not that often I need network on Amiga but would be nice to get Mac-filtering to work.
I know it's possible but I'm not that worried about someone hacking my network by spoofing MAC-addresses.
I guess I could get a card that supports WPA but I have noticed a speed difference when using WPA also.
Anyway it's not a big problem...guess I can live with enabling WEP sometimes.

[Depeche72]

Originally Posted by crazyc

Or a couple of powerline adapters and an ethernet card

Sent from my S7 Edge

Yes definitely an option...already have one that works very good for another device I have.
Will maybe look for a PCMCIA-card with cable option.

[crazyc]

I have both my a1200s connected via ethernet cable and it just removes the overheads of wifi.

Sent from my S7 Edge

[Cubemon]

You could get a WLAN access point with the DD-WRT system (or similar) for around 20-30 moneys and make it act as a wireless bridge. That way you can hook all your Amigas, C64s and other TCP/IP capable widgets to the access point and have it connect to your main WLAN.

That way the access point would handle the WLAN connection and encryption, and you wouldn't have to tinker with them on the Amiga side.

[idrougge]

You don't need to use WEP. Just follow the manual.

network={
	ssid="your_network"
	key_mgmt=NONE
}

[Depeche72]

Originally Posted by idrougge

You don't need to use WEP. Just follow the manual.

network={
    ssid="your_network"
    key_mgmt=NONE
}

Of course...why didn't I read the manual.
I read the manual for prism2.device and I hope this will work.
NOKEY - turn off WEP encryption

SetPrism2Defaults SSID xxxxx NOKEY CHANNEL 12
Will try it when I come home from work.

[paul1981]

I upgraded my MA401 to WPA2 a couple of years ago iirc. I was previously using WEP. There was no speed difference after the upgrade, so I was really pleased.
Another MA401 I had wouldn't upgrade from WEP, so I don't use that one now.

A quick google for you:

https://bytemyvdu.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/the-internet-and-an-amiga-a1200-prism2v2-drivers-wpawpa2/

[Depeche72]

I got MAC-filtering to work so I'm happy now.
I don't want WEP or WPA/WPA2.
It worked with this row in startup-sequence.

SetPrism2Defaults SSID xxxxx NOKEY CHANNEL 12

[Sir_Lucas]

Originally Posted by Depeche72

I got MAC-filtering to work so I'm happy now.
I don't want WEP or WPA/WPA2.
It worked with this row in startup-sequence.

SetPrism2Defaults SSID xxxxx NOKEY CHANNEL 12

With the older version of Prism2 drivers you can use a great tool called WIFI SIGNAL:
http://aminet.net/package/util/app/WiFiSignal