802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide (Definitive Guide)

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   ネットワーク設計者や管理者であれば、有線イーサネットによるネットワーク構築方法を知らない人はいないだろう。対線ケーブルでインフラを構築し、セキュリティを確保し、帯域不足を監視する方法などはよく知られている。ところが、IEEE802.11シリーズとして標準化されている技術を利用したワイヤレスイーサネットに関しては、経験豊富なネットワーク設計者にとっても未知の問題が少なくない。本書はワイヤレスLANネットワークを設計し、管理するために必要な知識をまとめることに主眼をおいている。本書を読めば、機器の導入・管理をするための知識、ドライバ開発者など下位レイヤの開発に有用な情報を得ることができる。

   これまで、重要であるのに抜かされがちであった項目として、802.11ワイヤレスLANの悪名高い弱点であるセキュリティがある。本書では、十分とは言えないが広く利用されているWEP認証プロトコルについて詳しく述べており、また別の一章を、最近注目されているEAP認証を利用した802.1xの解説に当てている。著者は図表による解説が巧みで、通信周波数の時間的変化や端末が複数のアクセスポイントと通信していく様子をわかりやすく解説している。ワイヤレスLANの技術解説のスタンダードと言える1冊である。（David Wall, Amazon.com）

本書で取り上げられているトピック：IEEE 802.11a, 11b （WiFi）ネットワークの動作原理、設定方法、フレーム仕様や認証プロトコルの動作、802.11無線通信の物理層が受ける影響の詳細、ワイヤレスネットワークに適したトポロジー、トラフィック解析とパフォーマンス改善手法。

Product Description

As we all know by now, wireless networks offer many advantages over fixed (or wired) networks. Foremost on that list is mobility, since going wireless frees you from the tether of an Ethernet cable at a desk. But that's just the tip of the cable-free iceberg. Wireless networks are also more flexible, faster and easier for you to use, and more affordable to deploy and maintain.

The de facto standard for wireless networking is the 802.11 protocol, which includes Wi-Fi (the wireless standard known as 802.11b) and its faster cousin, 802.11g. With easy-to-install 802.11 network hardware available everywhere you turn, the choice seems simple, and many people dive into wireless computing with less thought and planning than they'd give to a wired network. But it's wise to be familiar with both the capabilities and risks associated with the 802.11 protocols. And "802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide," 2nd Edition is the perfect place to start.

This updated edition covers everything you'll ever need to know about wireless technology. Designed with the system administrator or serious home user in mind, it's a no-nonsense guide for setting up 802.11 on Windows and Linux. Among the wide range of topics covered are discussions on:

deployment considerations

network monitoring and performance tuning

wireless security issues

how to use and select access points

network monitoring essentials

wireless card configuration

security issues unique to wireless networks

With wireless technology, the advantages to its users are indeed plentiful. Companies no longer have to deal with the hassle and expense of wiring buildings, and households with several computers canavoid fights over who's online. And now, with "802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide," 2nd Edition, you can integrate wireless technology into your current infrastructure with the utmost confidence.

Amazon.com Review

Among network designers and administrators, wired Ethernet is a known quantity. Plenty is known about how to build good twisted-pair network infrastructures, how to keep them secure, and how to monitor their excess capacity. Not so for the wireless Ethernet networks (built around the IEEE 802.11x standards)--these hold much more mystery for even experienced network designers. 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide aims to codify the body of knowledge needed to design and maintain wireless local area networks (LANs). The authors succeed admirably in this, covering what installation and administration teams need to know and digging into information of use to driver writers and others working at lower levels.

The only significant detail that's been excluded has to do with security--a notorious weak point of 802.11x LANs. The authors cover the feeble but widely used Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) authentication protocol in detail and devote another whole chapter to 802.1x, which is an emerging authentication scheme based on Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). The author has considerable skill in communicating information graphically and does a great job of using graphs to show how communications frequencies shift over time and how conversations among access points and network nodes progress over time. This is indeed an authoritative document. --David Wall

Topics covered: How IEEE 802.11a and 802.11b wireless networks (also known as WiFi networks) work, and how to configure your own. The framing specification is covered well, as are authentication protocols and (in detail) the physical phenomena that affect IEEE 802.11x radio transmissions. There's advice on how to design a wireless network topology, and how to go about network traffic analysis and performance improvement.