Wireless LANs

Chapter 17

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Chapter Objectives

Explain Wireless LAN concept

Explain Wireless LAN security
Deploy WLANs

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Recall - I

IPv6 supports the features of the security protocol,

provides a way to change addresses that are assigned
to the hosts, provides globally unicast addressing
removes the need for NAT/PAT. In addition, it has many
tools to help with the transition from IPv4 to IPv6.
You can abbreviate the IPv6 address by neglecting the
leading 0's in every block or putting (::) in place of
continuous hex 0s.

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Recall - II

A prefix includes some value followed by a slash and a

prefix length.
In the RS/RA process, the host sends an IPv6 RS
multicast message to all the routers to identify the IPv6
prefix used on the subnet and IPv6 address of the
default router on the subnet. The router replies by
sending RA message.

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WLAN Concept

Wireless LANs are used for Laptops. The users may can
connect to a network or Internet when required.

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Modes of 802.11 Wireless

LANs
WLANs use the following modes for
communication.

Ad hoc mode
Infrastructure mode

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Ad hoc Mode

This mode is used if a wireless device needs to

communicate with only a single device or few devices for
a short period of time. In ad hoc mode, devices directly
send WLAN frames to each other.

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Infrastructure mode

This mode is used if a wireless device needs to

communicate over the entire network.
The Infrastructure mode supports the following two types
of service sets:
Basic Service Set (BSS)
Extended Service Set (ESS)

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Wireless Encoding

When an AP or a WLAN NIC transmits data, it modulates

the amplitude, phase and frequency of the signal to
encode the data into binary 0 or 1. The classes that can
be used to encode the data are as follows:
Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
Orthogonal Division Multiplexing (OFDM)

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Coverage Area, Speed and

Capacity of WLANs

The coverage area of a WLAN is the space in which

WLAN devices communicate successfully. The AP
creates a coverage area for the WLAN depending on the
following factors:
Power transmitted by AP
Materials and their locations
Antennas
Other factors

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Wireless LAN Security

WLAN have some unique security requirements because

of the vulnerabilities introduced by WLAN which do not
exist in Ethernet LANs.
The following are WLAN security standards:
Wired Equivalence Privacy (WEP)
SSID Cloaking and MAC Filtering
Cisco Interim Solution between WEP and 802.11i
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
IEEE 802.11i (WPA-2)

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Configuring APs

APs are installed and connected to high-speed Internet at

home.
The following parameters are used for configuring
customer-grade and enterprise-grade APs:
IEEE standard
Wireless channel
Service Set Identifier
Transmit power

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Cisco's Unified Wireless

Solution
I
Organizations today implement the following wireless

solutions:
Mesh Architecture - In this architecture each node
which is an access point is connected to another node
to transmit data between the nodes. Cisco's mesh
networks use the devices such as:
Root Access Point (RAP)
Mesh Access Point (MAP)

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Cisco's Unified Wireless

Solution
II
Lightweight Access Point protocol (LWAPP) - It is used to

communicate with WLAN systems designed by IETF.

Adaptive Wireless Path Protocol (AWPP)- It is a new
wireless LAN protocol developed by Cisco. Even when
the best path is established, AWPP continues to run in
the background to establish alternative path ready in RAP
so that it can use when the established link fails.

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Summary - I

WLAN uses wireless connection to connect mobile users

to a LAN.
WLAN uses a device called AP (Access Point) for the
data transmission.
IEEE has defined four major WLAN standards, namely
802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g.
WLANs use one of the two modes namely ad hoc or
Infrastructure modes.
Ad hoc mode sends the frames directly between the
devices, whereas the Infrastructure mode uses the AP
(Access point) for frame transmission.

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Summary - II

Infrastructure mode uses two type of service set namely

Basic Service Set (BSS) and Extended Service Set
(ESS).
WLAN uses the following three general classes to
encode the data:
Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)

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Summary - III

You can measure the WLAN signals easily in

comparison to other undesired signals in the same
space using Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). For sending
data successfully through WLAN, the SNR must be high.
A device which is near to the AP will pass the data at
higher speed. The device which is at the edge of the
coverage area will transmit the data at lower speed.

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Summary - IV

The AP creates a coverage area for the WLAN

depending on the following factors
Power transmitted by AP
Materials and their locations
Antennas
WLAN can have the following threats which are
suggested by Cisco authority:
War drivers
Hackers
Employees
Rogue AP

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Summary-V

WLAN uses the following three types of tools to reduce

the attacks:
Mutual Authentication
Encryption
Intrusion Tools
WEP is the original 802.11 security standard that
provides the authentication and encryption services.

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