Updating my wireless Linksys devices

The wonders of wireless network access are nothing short of fantastic. The only drawbacks in comparison to the wired variant would be that they need configuration (and not just cables) and that it introduces a new security risk. I try to maintain level of security, which also involves having non-trivial passwords - great for security but I have to remember them, and from time to time I fail on that. Though keeping an updated firmware has become more important since it has become a target for viruses and trojans. This post is a short writeup on my notes getting my wireless network up and running again.

Linksys WPS54G

I have just changed my ISP and swapped back to my old Linksys router and that went fine. It was when I wanted to updated my wireless printer server that ughh, no password no update. My printserver is a Linksys WPS54G (Version 2.0):

The data sheet can tell you about all the goodies, but I will say that from time to time I've seen some strange behavior with the administrator interfacer and read postings that suggest using IE 5 or a browser that faked that. My experience is also that when you got configured right and running it works like a charm.

I first had to reset it and according to the manual is should happen after pressing the reset button for about 10 seconds, that didn't work for me just printed the current configuration each time, but doing a unplug/plug followed by a reset did. I then used the desktop program to configure it, since I knew that the web-interface can be flaky. The configuration went without problems but do note that the default password is admin (without usename) but after changing the password the username has to be admin used with the new password.

I also updated the firmware version 6051 (08/21/2008) without any problems.

Linksys WRT54GS

While I was at it I had decided to updated the SSID and security model to WPA2(AES) so I also reconfigured my router a Linksys WRT54GS (version 1.1), that has served me well for a long time:

The password thing is just the same as with the WPS54G. I updated the firmware to Version 4.71.4, which according to the website was from 03/13/2008, but the router said 10/31/2007.