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Logging into your router
Pt. 1 of 10 | 2:24 |
Monday July 13, 2009
Understanding your Home Network Router
Monday July 13, 2009
The first step in
In this 10-part series is to take some of the mystery out of the router and allow you to be comfortable with it... it's not as hard as you may think to
securing your home network
is to familiarize yourself with yourrouter's control panel
. First, you'll want tofind your router's IP address
andlogin to your router
. There are somecommon router passwords
that manufacturers use so if you haven't changed your router's password, you'll find it in the documentation that came with it.In this 10-part series is to take some of the mystery out of the router and allow you to be comfortable with it... it's not as hard as you may think to
set up your own home network
.Download this episode now
Quicktime Show Notes
- The router brand used in this series is a LinkSys WRT54GS.
- While you may have a different brand most of the functions we discuss will be present in your router, though they may be under a different name.
- The router uses an IP address for logging in.
- There are certain standardized IP addresses that are commonly used.
- You can easily
- Click Start and then Run and type in CMD which stands for "command" and press Enter.
- A DOS (Disk Operating System) window will open up.
- At the blinking cursor type IPCONFIG and press Enter.
- In the display that appears look for the Default Gateway which should appear at the bottom of the ipconfig listing.
- In this example our Default Gateway is 192.168.1.1 and this is the IP address of our router.
- To exit DOS simply type EXIT and press enter.
- Now, open a Web browser and type the IP address you found in the command window. In our example, our router's IP address is 192.168.1.1 so we'll type http://192.168.1.1.
- You will be greeted by a login window where you need to type username and password.
- The most common router user name is "admin" with no quotes.
- The most common password is "admin", followed by "password" or "1234" or "admin."
- To find your router's default user name and password, check the documentation that came with your router or check your router manufacturer's Web site.
- RouterPasswords.com is an excellent resource for default user name and password combinations for just about every router in existence.
- Type in the correct user name and password and now you are logged into your routers user interface.
- While you may have a different brand most of the functions we discuss will be present in your router, though they may be under a different name.
- The router uses an IP address for logging in.
- There are certain standardized IP addresses that are commonly used.
- You can easily
find out what your router's IP address is
.- Click Start and then Run and type in CMD which stands for "command" and press Enter.
- A DOS (Disk Operating System) window will open up.
- At the blinking cursor type IPCONFIG and press Enter.
- In the display that appears look for the Default Gateway which should appear at the bottom of the ipconfig listing.
- In this example our Default Gateway is 192.168.1.1 and this is the IP address of our router.
- To exit DOS simply type EXIT and press enter.
- Now, open a Web browser and type the IP address you found in the command window. In our example, our router's IP address is 192.168.1.1 so we'll type http://192.168.1.1.
- You will be greeted by a login window where you need to type username and password.
- The most common router user name is "admin" with no quotes.
- The most common password is "admin", followed by "password" or "1234" or "admin."
- To find your router's default user name and password, check the documentation that came with your router or check your router manufacturer's Web site.
- RouterPasswords.com is an excellent resource for default user name and password combinations for just about every router in existence.
- Type in the correct user name and password and now you are logged into your routers user interface.
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