Wireless router password is the key to make any configuration changes to the router including changing the password itself, the default router IP address, the DHCP setting, the wireless security encryption and so on.

Each router manufacturers provide the default manufacturer setting including user-name and password. The first step in securing your network environment that you should do is to change the default setting of the router password. If the un-authorized users ever get your router password, they can control the network and probably steal your valuable information assets. It is therefore, changing your default wireless router password is very essential. And then you should change the password in a regular basis, normally each 60 days is acceptable. See also the guideline in securing the password.

Change the Password

Home users generally lack of networking knowledge, it is therefore the manufacturers understand the situation and ship the products with the manufacturer default setting to allow home users configure the product with minimum effort. Basically the wireless routers are designed to be operational with the default setting out of the box. However, there are two things that you should change from the default settings: the wireless router password and the SSID name for security reasons. The more advanced settings can be done later depends on your need. See also how to secure wireless network. How to change the default router password?

Before you change the default wireless router password, you should know the manufacturer default settings of the router. The table below shows the list of default settings of the user-name and password for some wireless routers: 3Com, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, and Trendnet.

Connect one of the LAN ports of the router to the computer NIC adapter by using a network cable. You can run the installation wizard from the CD that comes with the router, or you can run the web-based utility from the browser by typing the default IP address as shown in the table above. For example, you can access your Linksys wireless router using the web-based utility by typing http://192.168.1.1 in the browser and then press Enter. A login screen will appear that prompts you to enter the user-name and password.

The next step is to change the default wireless router password. Generally you can change the password from the Administration > Management menu. Enter the password and re-type the password for confirmation.

Change the router IP address

Should you change the default router IP address? The router IP address is very important for the network, because the router IP address will become your default gateway for the computers on the network to access the internet. Default gateway IP address is where all the packets are forwarded when there is no specific route for forwarding them to their destination.

For example, in your home network there are two computers A and B with the IP address 192.168.1.5 and 192.168.1.10 respectively and your wireless router IP address is 192.168.1.1. When user in computer A types in URL in the browser (for example yahoo.com which is translated by the DNS to 94.134.201.120), the IP address 94.134.201.120 is not located in your local network. So the packets are forwarded through the gateway IP address out to the Internet (your ISP).

Therefore, leave the default router IP address for home usage would be OK. Unless you need to use different network address that fits to your need.

By Ki Grinsing

See also:

• Linksys wireless network – Guidelines for home users
• Introducing WGA600N Linksys game wireless adapter
• Directional wireless antenna – hi-gain antenna
• How to choose the best wireless gaming routers
• How to choose the best wireless network