When it comes to helping you troubleshoot wireless networking problems, Mac OS X can't seem to make up its mind. The old Network Utility was appropriate primarily for network gurus. Wireless Mac Mac users can log in to get step-by-step instructions for connecting to the campus wireless network. Download and install the best free apps for Wireless Networking Software on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android from CNET Download.com, your trusted source for the top software picks.
Audio Transcript
WiFi is everywhere, from hotels to cafés and lots of people use wireless networks at home. You can connect your Mac to a WiFi network using AirPort, which is Apple’s wireless networking gear.
If you’re setting up the network at home, you need to configure the AirPort base station. So, just connect an Ethernet cable from your broadband modem to the base station, then connect your base station to your computers Ethernet port.
Plug in the base stations power cable and wait for the solid light to turn green.
Now on your Mac, open the applications folder. Then select the utilities sub folder. Double click the AirPort utility icon. You should see the AirPort base station on the left, in which case, click it and choose the continue button. If the station is not listed, choose, set up a new AirPort base station and click continue.
On the next screen, enter a password for the base station. Make sure you write this password down and keep this somewhere safe, because you’ll need it again if you want to change the base station settings and click continue.
Now decide whether you want to create a new wireless network or connect the base station to an existing wireless network. In this case, we’re creating a new network, so click the continue button. If you’re adding the base station to an existing network, make the wireless network name the same as for the rest of the network. Click continue again and choose a security format. WPA is your safest bet, but some older computers will only support WEP. Use the highest level of security supported by your equipment. And now you guessed it, click continue.
Okay, you’re getting close. On the next screen, decide whether you’re connecting the AirPort base station to a router or a modem, then click continue. Then choose how to connect to the internet. Most people use DHCP and choose continue again. And finally, verify all the set up details and click the magic button to update. At this point the base station restarts and once it’s done, you see a congratulations screen. The set up is complete when you choose quit.
And once you’ve set up your base station and created your wireless network, you can connect via WiFi. All you need is the name of the network and the password.
This is a great way to free you up from your cables and allows you the flexibility to work or play on your WiFi compatible computer wherever you want.
SecTools.Org: Top 125 Network Security Tools
For more than a decade, the NmapProject has been cataloguing the network security community'sfavorite tools. In 2011 this site became much more dynamic, offeringratings, reviews, searching, sorting, and a new tool suggestion form.This site allows open source and commercial tools on any platform,except those tools that we maintain (such as the Nmap Security Scanner, Ncat network connector, and Nping packet manipulator).
We're very impressed by the collective smarts of the security community and we highly recommend reading the whole list and investigating any tools you are unfamiliar with. Click any tool name for more details on that particular application, including the chance to read (and write) reviews. Many site elements are explained by tool tips if you hover your mouse over them. Enjoy!
5 tools
(13)★★★★Aircrack (#4, 17)
Aircrack is a suite of tools for 802.11a/b/g WEP and WPA cracking. It implements the best known cracking algorithms to recover wireless keys once enough encrypted packets have been gathered. . The suite comprises over a dozen discrete tools, including airodump (an 802.11 packet capture program), aireplay (an 802.11 packet injection program), aircrack (static WEP and WPA-PSK cracking), and airdecap (decrypts WEP/WPA capture files). Read 25 reviews.
Latest release: version 1.1 on April 24, 2010 (10 years, 5 months ago).
(3)★★★★½Kismet (#11, 4)
Kismet is a console (ncurses) based 802.11 layer-2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. It identifies networks by passively sniffing (as opposed to more active tools such as NetStumbler), and can even decloak hidden (non-beaconing) networks if they are in use. It can automatically detect network IP blocks by sniffing TCP, UDP, ARP, and DHCP packets, log traffic in Wireshark/tcpdump compatible format, and even plot detected networks and estimated ranges on downloaded maps. As you might expect, this tool is commonly used for wardriving. Oh, and also warwalking, warflying, and warskating, etc. Read 3 reviews.
Wireless Mac Address
Latest release: version Kismet-2013-03-R1b on April 8, 2013 (7 years, 6 months ago).
(2)★★★★½NetStumbler (#25, 7)
Netstumbler is the best known Windows tool for finding open wireless access points ('wardriving'). They also distribute a WinCE version for PDAs and such named MiniStumbler. The tool is currently free but Windows-only and no source code is provided. It uses a more active approach to finding WAPs than passive sniffers such as Kismet or KisMAC. Read 3 reviews.
Wireless Network Tools
Latest release: version 0.4.0 on April 1, 2004 (16 years, 6 months ago).
(6)★★★★½inSSIDer (#90, new!)
inSSIDer is a wireless network scanner for Windows, OS X, and Android. It was designed to overcome limitations of NetStumbler, namely not working well on 64-bit Windows and Windows Vista. inSSIDer can find open wireless access points, track signal strength over time, and save logs with GPS records. Read 11 reviews.
Latest release: version 4.1.0 on Jan. 22, 2015 (5 years, 8 months ago).
(1)★★★★★KisMAC (#97, 42)
This popular wireless stumbler for Mac OS X offers many of the features of its namesake Kismet, though the codebase is entirely different. Unlike console-based Kismet, KisMAC offers a pretty GUI and was around before Kismet was ported to OS X. It also offers mapping, Pcap-format import and logging, and even some decryption and deauthentication attacks. Read 2 reviews.
Latest release: version 0.3.3 on Feb. 7, 2011 (9 years, 8 months ago).
5 tools