Saturday, March 1, 2008

Install and Configure the Email Server in Windows Server 2003 + Outlook Express

Introduction
This tutorial will help you to install and set up a few email accounts, by using the built-in POP3 Service in Windows Server 2003. I will assume you have basic knowledge about the Windows Server family and Mail Servers, but I have tried to make this tutorial as easily comprehensible as possible. The tutorial has been tested on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition but should also work on Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. I will not cover MX records and other similar things in this release.

To follow this tutorial you need a stand alone server. You can of course use a Domain Controller, but that assumes you understand when to not follow the tutorial and use other settings (i.e. authentication method).
Install the Email Server
You can install the Email Server by using Add or Remove Windows Components or Manage Your Server. In this tutorial we will use the latter, because it’s the quickest way to get this up and running. Manage Your Server is a bit easier to use too, because it will prompt you for the domain you want to use during setup. That will not Add or Remove Windows Components do, and we have to do everything manually.
If it’s not open, start Manage Your Server by clicking Start->Programs->Administrative Tools->Manage Your Server.
Click on Add or remove a role.

This will start the Configure Your Server Wizard. Read the text and make sure you have connected all the necessary cables and all the other things it says you should do before continuing.

Click Next
The wizard will now detect your network settings. This will take a while depending on how many network connections you have
We now come to the step where we add and remove roles for our server. We will add the Mail Server role. I also suggest that before you click Next, click Read about mail servers because this tutorial is not a complete reference.

Click Mail server (POP3, SMTP)
Click Next
You will now specify the type of authentication and type the email domain name. In this tutorial we will use Windows Authentication, and I will use my domain name, ilopia.com. You should of course use your domain name.

Click Next
Next step is to confirm the options you have selected.
Click Next
The installation will start, and will also start the Windows Components Wizard. When you get prompted to insert your Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive, do so. If you didn’t get prompted to do that, you maybe already have it in the drive. Hopefully within some minutes you get this screen:

You can now see the log, click view the next steps for this role, or click Finish. Do whatever you feel you want to do before continuing.
Click Finish
You have now successfully installed the mail server, congratulations!
Configure the Email Server
So, it is no fun with a mail server installed, if we can’t use it. And to use it, we have to configure it. This section will help you configure the mail server.
Click Start, then run, and type p3server.msc
This will open up the POP3 Service. This is where you configure and manage the POP3 part of the mail server.
Click on in the left pane
Click on Server Properties in the right pane
This brings up the Properties for our Mail Server.

As you can see, we have a lot of settings. We will use the standard setup in this tutorial, but I will explain every setting we can change in case you want to change something in the future.
Authentication Method
There are three different authentication methods you can use; Local Windows Accounts, Active Directory Integrated and Encrypted Password File. It is an important decision which method to use, because once you have chosen, you must delete all email domains on the server to change method (from now on, you can migrate Encrypted File user accounts to AD, but nothing else can be migrated).
Local Windows Accounts
If your server is stand alone (not member of an Active Directory domain), and you want to have the user accounts on the same local computer as the POP3 service, this is the best option. By using this option, you will use the SAM (Security Accounts Manager) for both the email user accounts, and the user accounts on the local computer. This means that a user can use the same user name and password to be authenticated for both the POP3 service and Windows on the local computer. But there is a limitation, although you can host multiple domains on the server, there must be unique user names for all domains. So, let us say you have two users named Sandra. One working at company1.com and another one working at company2.com. Their user name used will be sandra@company1.com and sandra@company2.com. But in SAM, they will both have the same user name, sandra, so one of them must be renamed to something else (if we don’t want them to read each other’s emails).
If you create the user account when you create the mail box (by using the POP3 interface), the user will be added to the POP3 user group. Members of this group are not allowed to logon locally. The fact that the users are added to the POP3 group does not mean that you must be a member of this group to have a mailbox. You should however be careful adding mailboxes to users that are not member of the POP3 group, because the password used for email can for example be sniffed (if you are not using SPA), or someone can brute force the password and gain access to the server.
Active Directory Integrated
You can select this option if the server is a member of an Active Directory domain or is a Domain Controller. By using this you will integrate the POP3 Service with you AD domain. AD users can use their user name and password to send and receive email. Of course you have to create mailboxes to them first. Unlike Local Windows Accounts you can use the same user name on different domains. So sandra@company1.com and sandra@company2.com will have different mailboxes. There is however one thing you should know about, that does not affect the mailbox name and email-name, and the pre-Windows 2000 user name can be changed. Active Directory do not support the same pre-Windows 2000 user name, and this name is usually the same as the user name, which means that if you create a mailbox and user with the same pre-Windows 2000 user name, it will rename the pre-Windows 2000 user name.
Encrypted Password File
This is the option you want to select if you don’t use Active Directory or don’t want to create users on the local computer. Like Active Directory Integrated you can have the same user name on different domains, but you cannot assign the same user name to several mailboxes within the same domain.
This method works by creating an encrypted file stored in each user’s mailbox. This file contains the password for the user. When the user wants to check his/her email, the password that the user supplies is encrypted and compared to the one in the file.
It is possible to migrate Encrypted File user accounts to AD user accounts.
Server Port
I strongly recommend that you use port 110 because this is the standard port for the POP3 protocol. If you change this, make sure you notify all users so they can configure their email clients to use this other port. Also make sure you restart the POP3 service if you change this.
Logging Level
Four options to choose between. If you change this, remember that you must restart the POP3 service. None
Nothing is logged. Low
Only critical events are logged. Medium
Both critical and warning events are logged. High
Critical, warning and informational events are logged.
Root Mail Directory
If you don’t want to use the default Mail Directory, you can choose another one. Make sure the path is not more than 260 characters and you can also not store to the root of a partition (i.e. C:). It is strongly recommended that you use a NTFS formatted partition. You can’t use a mapped drive, but the UNC name (\\servername\share) can be used. If you later change the store, and there are still emails in one or more boxes, you must manually move the folders in which there are emails to the new location. You must also reset the permissions on the directory by using winpop set mailroot.
SPA
Enable SPA if you want to have a secure communication between your email sever and email clients. This will send both the user name and password encrypted from the client to the server, instead of sending it in clear text. SPA supports only Local Windows Accounts and Active Directory Integrated Authentication. It is recommended to use this. Remember to restart the POP3 service if you change this.
Create a mailbox
The Setup Wizard created a domain to us, so we do not need to create this manually. If you did not use Manage Your Server to install, add the domain manually be clicking the server name in the left pane and then click New domain in the right pane. Remember to set the properties before you add the domain.
Click on your domain (ilopia.com in my case) in the left pane.
Click Add Mailbox in the right pane.
This will open up the Add Mailbox window.

Write bob in Mailbox Name
Write bob as password (of course this is not a password you should use in a production environment, it’s too short)
Click OK
A message will pop-up and tell you how to configure the email clients. Read this, and notice the difference when using SPA or not.

Click OK
What we just did was not only creating a mailbox named bob, but we also created a user bob. We will also create a mailbox for an existing user - ariel. To do that we simply perform the same steps, but we uncheck Create associated user for this mailbox. Remember that the mailbox name must be less then 21 characters (64 for Encrypted Password File and Active Directory). Periods are allowed to use, but not as the first or last character.
So, we have now two users. Are they equally? No, bob is a member of the POP3 Users group, which is denied to logon locally. Ariel is not member of this group, and can still logon locally and access her mailbox.
Configure the SMTP Server
Actually, that’s it! It is this simple to configure the POP3 part. But it is not yet working as we want, we have to configure the SMTP part to be able to receive and send emails. Yes, I said receive emails. A common mistake is to think that the POP3 server receives the emails. But that is not true, all the POP3 is doing is ‘pop’ the emails out to the clients. It’s the SMTP server that is communicating with other SMTP servers and receives and sends emails.
Open Computer Management
Expand Services and Applications, expand Internet Information Service
Right click Default SMTP Virtual Server and click Properties
Click the Access tab
Click the Authentication button and make sure Anonymous Access and Integrated Windows Authentication is enabled.
Click the Relay button and make sure Allow all computers which successfully... is enabled and Only the list below is selected.
First of all, Authentication and Relay is not the same thing. We use the Authentication button to specify which authentications methods are allowed for users and other SMTP servers. So enabling Anonymous here is not a security issue, in fact, it’s required if we want our server to be able to receive emails from other servers on Internet (I doubt you want to tell all administrators of email servers on Internet how they should logon to yours). We also need Windows Authentication so the email clients can authenticate to the server and be able to relay (send emails).
As Relay Restrictions we selected Only the list below because we do not want to be used by spammers to send emails. But we never specified any computers. That is valid, because we wants our clients to always use the username and password to authenticate, no matter where they are.
If you want users to only be allowed to relay if they are on a private network, then you can uncheck Windows Authentication as allowed authentication method, and specify the IP range for your network in the Relay Restrictions window.
Is that all? Do we have a working email server now? Well, the answer is yes. But we still haven’t configured the email clients.
Configure the email client
We will use Outlook Express as email client.
Start Outlook Express (any computer that is connected to the email server)
Click Tools and then Accounts
Click the Add button and select Mail
A wizard starts. Use the following table to complete the wizard:
Display name Bob
E-mail address bob@ (bob@ilopia.com)
Incoming mail server is a POP3
Incoming mail server (ilopia.com)
Outgoing mail server (ilopia.com)
Account name bob@ (bob@ilopia.com)
Password bob
Remember Password Checked
SPA Unchecked
Are we finished now? Well, let us try to send an email. Didn’t work, did it? I’m sure you got an error message similar to this one:
The message could not be sent because one of the recipients was rejected by the server. The rejected e-mail address was 'webmaster@ilopia.com'. Subject 'Test', Account: 'ilopia.com', Server: 'ilopia.com', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: '550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for webmaster@ilopia.com', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 550, Error Number: 0x800CCC79
The reason why we got this is written in the error message. “Unable to relay for ”. This means that we didn’t get authenticated to the SMTP server. So, let us take a look at the email client’s settings again.
Click Tools, then Accounts.
This will bring up this window:

Click the correct account and then the Properties button
Click the Servers tab
In the Outgoing Mail Server section enable My server requires authentication.
Click Apply, click OK, click Close
Create a new email, and send it
And hopefully you will receive an email within some minutes (if you sent it to your own email account).
Enable SPA
Of course we want our network as secure as possible, so we prefer to use SPA (Secure Password Authentication). This will, as stated before, send the user name and password from the client encrypted, instead of clear text.
Click Start, then Run
Type p3server.msc
In the right pane, right click your computer’s name and click Properties
Check the box Require Secure Password Authentication...
Click OK
You will be prompted to restart the Microsoft POP3 Service, click Yes
We must also change some settings for the email clients.
Start Outlook Express
Click Tools, click Accounts
Click the Mail tab, click the name of your email account, click Properties
Click the Servers tab, and click Log on using Secure Password Authentication
Change the account name from bob@ to bob
Click Apply, click OK
More help
If you need more help, or are curious about things, take a look at the help files in Windows Server 2003. They are excellent and you will find out that there are more features that I have not talked about.
Links
Advanced Mail Server Configurations
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/advmail.mspx
Comparing the POP3 Service and Configuring Coexistence with Exchange
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=46e9cdd0-95f0-4db6-a4d2-874f4abb09e5&displaylang=en
Setting up “Catch-all” e-mail account in Windows Server 2003
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/catchall.htm
FAQ
Additional questions and answers can be found here:
Q. I have configured the email server and I can send emails without problems. But all emails the server receives ends up in the Drop folder and are not moved to the proper mailbox. What is wrong?
This can happen if you have moved the mail root recently and forgot to cycle the server. To cycle it, open the Services snap-in and find Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) in the list. This problem can also occur if you created the SMTP account manually through the IIS snap in. What you have to do in this case is to delete the domain from SMTP and then re-add it using the POP3 tools.
Q. Does the built-in email server support Internet Access Message Protocol (IMAP)?
No, the built-in email server does not support IMAP. If you want or need IMAP support you'll have to look at Exchange 2003, Exchange 2000 running on a Windows 2000 Server machine in a Windows Server 2003 domain, or use a third party email server.
Q. I want the users to be able to read and write email from Internet. Does the built-in email server offer a web interface?
No, the built-in email server is very limited and is only a basic email server. So this feature is not included in it.
Q. I cannot find the SMTP Snap-In in IIS Manager. How do I get it back?
This is a known issue, and should be fixed in Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003. To fix it, follow these steps:
Click Start, then Run and type cmd and press ENTER.
Type regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\smtpsnap.dll
Uninstall and re-install the SMTP Service will not fix this.
Q. Where are the POP3 logfiles?
The POP3 Service logs to the Event Logs, which can be viewed by using Event Viewer.

Friday, February 29, 2008

About Delphi Programming - for Novice Developers and First Time Visitors

What You Need to Know About Delphi Programming.
Hi! I'm Zarko Gajic, your About,com Guide to Delphi Programming. That's my picture at the top of the page. You can read my bio to learn more about who I am. I write feature articles and tutorials related to Delphi programming. I also gather links to other sites that have articles, tutorials, and important information on specific aspects of programming in the Delphi language.

The purpose of this page is to orient newcomers with an overview of some special features of the About Delphi Programming Web site.
Before you start exploring the vast amount of Delphi related topics this site covers, I would strongly suggest signing up for the FREE Delphi Newsletter (no spam 100%) - to make sure you are up-to-date with new Delphi tutorials, articles and tips posted daily on About Delphi Programming.
CodeGear (Borland subsidiary) Delphi is an object-oriented, visual programming environment to develop 32-bit and Microsoft .NET applications for deployment on the Internet, Windows and Linux.
If you are just entering the programming world, here's why you should consider learning Delphi: Why Delphi?. Also, don't miss Delphi History!
If you are confused about different Delphi versions (Turbo Delphi, Delphi 2006, Borland Developer Studio 2006), read the "Flavors of Delphi" article to be able to easily pick your Delphi of choice.
There is a lot of information on this site about Delphi programming; this site covers all aspects of Delphi development, including tutorials and articles, forum, language reference with examples, glossary, free code programs, custom components and much more.
Let me help you find what you're looking for (and help your career by looking for the right Delphi job). Learn how Delphi can help you solve complex development problems to deliver high-performance, highly scalable applications ranging from Windows and database applications to mobile and distributed applications for the Internet.
If you simply want to build a simple database application (accounting, CD/DVD album), for home use, Delphi will help you build it fast and with ease.
Looking for something specific?You can search this Delphi Programming site or all of About.com for a specific programming task. Try it using the search box at the top of the page. Hint: Put phrases in double-quotation marks for better results (i.e. "protected hack"). If you are looking for more ways to find Delphi programming related materials, go see the "Searching for Delphi" article.
True Beginners, Students, Newcomers ...For those who are new to Delphi, I've prepared several free online courses designed to get you to a fast start. The free courses below are perfect for Delphi beginners as well as for those who want a broad overview of the art of programming with Delphi.
Turbo Delphi Tutorial: For Novice and Non-Programmers
A Beginner's Guide to Delphi Programming
A Beginner's Guide to Delphi Database Programming
A Beginner's Guide to ASP.NET Web programming for Delphi developers
Be sure not to miss the Delphi Tutorials and Online / Email Courses section.
How to program in Delphi – what you need to know?This entire site is devoted to providing the tutorials and other resources needed to learn Delphi programming. There are several broad categories of Delphi programming tutorials to help you in your quest to learn how to create the best solutions fast. These include tutorials for the beginner as well as the more experienced developer, find them listed in A-Z.
If you are looking for free or/and shareware and commercial components, you’ll be happy to know I’ve prepared a dozen of Top Picks pages – where all the best third-party components, tools and Delphi books are collected and reviewed.
Be the first to know!With one simple line of code, you can have the About Delphi Programming *Current Headlines* embedded right into your HTML pages! To bring the news even more closely to Delphi developers, we've created a Delphi IDE add on. With this FREE tool, you can get the current headlines listing without even leaving Delphi IDE!
We award our visitors!Yes, yet another chance to be rewarded for your knowledge by About Delphi Programming! It's simple, it's easy, it's the Delphi Quickies Contest! Join now to win prizes by sharing your expertise in Delphi programming.
There's more (no doubt about that!)Don't see what you expected to find? Use the list of links down the left side of the page to find more specific areas of interest or use the search bar at the top of the page to search for what you need.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Troubleshooting Windows

Put some pep back into the OS.
Does it seem like Windows has been running in slow motion? It's not your imagination. Over time, Windows becomes progressively slower, ultimately reaching the point where system startups become agonizing affairs. It doesn't have to be that way. Here's how to put a little pep back into that sluggish system.
Manage your apps: Over time, installed applications can overrun your system, consuming hard disk space, system memory, and processor time. Try going to the Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs tool and seeing if you can pare down some of the installed software.

Bar the gates: One of the biggest problems is that many programs run all the time, even though you don't need them to. Adobe Acrobat, for instance, loads an inane applet to keep tabs on when you need to view a PDF--despite the fact that a simple Windows file association ensures that Acrobat launches whenever you double-click a PDF file. Media-playing software is another frequent culprit. You can often disable this resource-hogging behavior in each applet (try right-clicking the applet icon in the Windows taskbar tray and clicking Properties or Options if applicable).
You can also knock out these preloaders in Windows. Click Start, Run and type msconfig and press OK. Click the Services tab, and uncheck any items in the list that you know you won't need. Click OK, and next time you launch, those services won't load into Windows.
Line 'em up: Another source of system slowdown is hard disk fragmentation, which occurs over time as files get written. As files change and grow, there often isn't free space to keep all the bits lined up in a row, so Windows places the data elsewhere and keeps tabs on how to pull the file together. While it all works well enough, these fragmented files force the disk to hunt down disconnected bits, slowing things down.
To line everything up again, open My Computer, right-click the drive you want to defragment, and click Properties. Then click the Tools tab and click Defragment Now. You can click the Analyze button to get a report showing you how mixed up your files are, or click Defragment to jump right into the process. Be warned, this can take an hour or longer on big drives. Also, the more free space you have on your disk when you defragment, the better.
Clean out the Registry: Even if you uninstall old applications and banish rude startup applets using MSCONFIG, the bits and chunks of software in your Windows Registry can still drag down your system. Utilities like Norton SystemWorks ($70) and VCOM SystemSuite Professional ($60) peer through thousands of Registry entries to sweep out unnecessary entries.
Test yourself: Want to avoid falling into the degrading-performance trap? PC Wizard is a free benchmarking application that lets you explore every aspect of your PC's performance--from memory and CPU to disk and graphics performance.
Michael Desmond is publishing director at Bock Interactive, a Web-commerce development firm in Burlington, Vermont.
Michael Desmond

Monday, February 25, 2008

Using SEO Software To Dominate A Keyword Phrase

Using SEO Software To Dominate A Keyword Phrase

Search engine optimization is, as many of us know, a great way of optimizing a web site to rank in the organic search engine results for certain key words. For instance, you aim your website internet marketing efforts at, for instance, the phrase search engine optimization resources.
This can be quite a laborious task without access to search engine optimization software. However, many people only use such software to optimize their own sites and fail to exploit it to find keywords and to study and understand the competition.
A key ingredient in ranking well for certain key words involves back linking. The more sites that link to your page picture which to optimize, preferably with your main keyword to which you aim to optimize being in the "anchor text", the more significant your page will seem to the search engines. Your ranking will therefore improve.

A keyway, however, of studying your competition with a view to beating them is to analyze their back linking strategies. For instance, in the recent software release called 'SEO Equalizer', and there are various functions called 'Promote your Site' and 'Maintain Your Site'.
These functions however can be used to in fact analyze other sites. In the software package, instead of entering your own website URL, analyze the ones of your competitors and superiors.
Finding your competition sites is very straightforward. Once you have identified through keyword research the keyword which you wish to dominate, you enter that term into Google and literally copy and paste the organic search result URLs from the first page one by one into the analyze feature of your SEO Software.
Within a few moments, you will get a list of all of the websites that backlink to that page. All the major packages also will tell you the Google PR of those sites. This information is extremely helpful. It is staggering how often, particularly in even a very competitive niche such as the internet marketing environment, the sites that appear in the first page of the organic Google search results have hardly any quality back links or are hardly optimized for the relevant keywords in the niche.
They will usually have 10 or so links that most of these will be to sites with a Google PR of zero. It is clear that hardly anyone is utilizing a sensible search engine optimization methods.
The major packages, including the new release SEO Equalizer, also have an ability to analyze keywords utilized in a relevant page. This information can be used in two ways. First, you can analyze your direct competitors to see whether their pages are optimized for the key word phrase to which you are aiming. Secondly, you can go to a website like Clickbank and find the best sites advertising products in your niche.
You then one of that site through the key word analysis of feature on your SEO program and find which sites are optimized for what keywords. If you feel that site is being run by someone who knows what they are doing, (an authority site) the chances are they have optimized their sight for the best keywords. And they have it, immediate quick keyword research. Copy and use.
Of course, you can then run those authority sites through the back link Analysis feature and find the source of their back links. Once you have a list of back linking partners for the authority sites and a list of the back linking partners for your competitor sites, you can begin to approach and compile your own list a back links with a view to dominating those keywords.
SEO software is therefore a vital ingredient in the internet and affiliate marketers arsenal in finding keywords and creating an effective SEO campaign. Buf use it to study your competitors!

An Overview Of Basic And Effective SEO Tactics

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
In a nutshell, SEO is "All of the techniques used to get your site noticed and indexed on all of the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN".
Why is SEO so important?
The number one way in which people find websites is through search engines, so achieving a high ranking in your keywords (typically the first page or 1-10 in the engine) is the best way to drive traffic to your site. With a quality ranking, the investment is invaluable, it is much like "free" advertising 24/7/365.
How can you become SEO friendly?
Although the methods of SEO is virtually endless, here are some of the most important factors of getting that top-spot.
Domain age - Search engines love a seasoned site, one that has been around for several years and proves to be beneficial for the users.Relevant, clean, new content - You need to make sure your site has fresh content and is updated regularly. The search engines like this and so do your visitors.No Flash - Flash is a great multimedia tool but is typically frowned upon for SEO, the text and content within the Flash piece cannot be seen by search engines, thus it cannot be implemented into your SEO progress. A major downer is having a flash intro, a flash intro page acts as a barrier between the main page and the rest of the content that lies within your site. Meta tags - Meta tags are invisible tags that are used by search engines to categorize your content. Heading tags - Heading tags (h1) should be used on the headline or most important and relevant factor of your page heading tags should also be used on the keywords which you think users will be searching for that will lead to your site. Site maps - Site maps is a link by link breakdown of your site. They help search engine "spiders" navigate through your site and index each individual page.What not to do for SEO
Keyword Stuffing - Keyword stuffing is jam packing your content with your main keywords to the point that your content no longer makes sense. Invisible content - Invisible content that is not intended for users to see but used to fill your page with keywords will quickly put you on a search engine's bad side. Too many h1 tagsLink farms - Link farms are basically individual pages with numerous links to other sites.Over doing any of the what not to do can result in your site being "sandboxed" which will exclude your site from the search engine altogether. Being "sandboxed" may last forever, years or months.
How long will a good ranking take?
SEO is a very time-dependent practice. Even if you practice good SEO techniques, don't expect results for up to 6 months or even more. Be patient and the investment will pay off greatly.
Your investment will pay off
Although the exact ROI of your SEO services is virtually incalculable due to its lengthy timeframe, experts agree that SEO is the most cost-effective marketing strategy if done correctly.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Ubuntu: Configure Wireless Network From The Command Line

Although Ubuntu and other distributions give us easy to use graphical user interfaces for configuring almost everything, it's nice to know how to get things working without them. Here we'll show how to connect to a wireless access point and get on the internet from the command line.

First things first, you have to know what the device name of your wireless interface is. Typically this is wlan0, but in my case, it's ath0. Be sure the interface is turned on.
user@ubuntu:~$ sudo ifconfig eth1 up
Next we'll get a list of all the available access points using the iwlist command.
user@ubuntu:~$ iwlist eth1 scanning
You should see something similar to the following:
ath0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
ESSID:"Satu"
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality=3/94 Signal level=-92 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Cell 02 - Address: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
ESSID:"MYACCESSPOINT"
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
Quality=45/94 Signal level=-50 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=200
Cell 03 - Address: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
ESSID:"dua"
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality=4/94 Signal level=-91 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
The output shows a quite a detailed list of the surrounding access points. You probably know which one you want. Take note of the essid. We'll use that to associate with that access point.
user@ubuntu:~$ sudo iwconfig eth1 essid MYACCESSPOINT
If the access point has some sort of WEP or WPA encryption enabled, you'll need to enter the key. If not, you can skip this step.
user@ubuntu:~$ sudo iwconfig eth1 key 12345abcde
You should now have a connection to the access point. But before you start using the interweb, you'll need to get an IP address. Most access points have DHCP servers that make this part easy. Just run the DHCP client to ask for an address.
user@ubuntu:~$ sudo dhclient
That should provide output similar to the following:
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.4
Copyright 2004-2006 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
can't create /var/lib/dhcp3/dhclient.leases: Permission denied
Can't create /var/run/dhclient.pid: Permission denied
drop_privileges: could not set group id: Operation not permitted
pete@pete-laptop:~$ sudo dhclient
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.4
Copyright 2004-2006 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/ath0/00:XX:14:01:6b:XX
Sending on LPF/ath0/00:XX:14:01:6b:XX
Listening on LPF/wifi0/
Sending on LPF/wifi0/
Listening on LPF/eth0/00:XX:43:45:92:XX
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:XX:43:45:92:XX
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPREQUEST on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
DHCPACK from 192.168.0.1
bound to 192.168.0.101 -- renewal in 39598 seconds.
Finally, let's check that everything is working. Ping an address.
user@ubuntu:~$ ping www.tutorial-on.com
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source: http://www.stoltenow.com/archives/2006/12/ubuntu_configur.html