ZyXEL Communications WRE2206 User Manual

WRE2206

Wireless N300 Range Extender

Version 1.00

Edition 1, 01/2015

Quick Start Guide

User’s Guide

Default Details

Web Address	http://zyxelsetup
	OR
www.zyxel.comhttp://192.168.1.2
User Name	admin
Password	1234
SSID	ZyXEL
Pre-shared Key	00000000

Copyright © 2015 ZyXEL Communications Corporation

IMPORTANT!

READ CAREFULLY BEFORE USE.

KEEP THIS GUIDE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

Related Documentation

•Quick Start Guide

The Quick Start Guide shows how to connect the WRE2206 and access the Web Configurator wizards.

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	WRE2206 User’s Guide

	Contents Overview
	Contents Overview
User’s Guide .........................................................................................................................................	7
Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................	9
The Web Configurator .............................................................................................................................	13
Connection Wizard ..................................................................................................................................	15
Status ......................................................................................................................................................	21
Tutorials ..................................................................................................................................................	26
Technical Reference ..........................................................................................................................	36
Wireless LAN ..........................................................................................................................................	38
LAN .........................................................................................................................................................	47
System ....................................................................................................................................................	49
Tools ........................................................................................................................................................	50
Troubleshooting ......................................................................................................................................	56

WRE2206 User’s Guide

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Table of Contents

		Table of Contents
Contents Overview ..............................................................................................................................		3
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................		4
Part I: User’s Guide ...........................................................................................		7
Chapter	1
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................		9
1.1	Overview .............................................................................................................................................	9
1.2	Securing the WRE2206 .....................................................................................................................	10
1.3	Front Panel ........................................................................................................................................	10
1.4	The WPS Button ...............................................................................................................................	11
	1.4.1 WiFi Protected Setup ...............................................................................................................	12
Chapter	2
The Web Configurator ........................................................................................................................		13
2.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	13
2.2	Accessing the Web Configurator .......................................................................................................	13
2.3	Resetting the WRE2206 ....................................................................................................................	14
Chapter	3
Connection Wizard .............................................................................................................................		15
3.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	15
3.2	Configuring the WRE2206 for Connection to an AP .........................................................................	15
	3.2.1 Selecting Automatically Detected AP Parameters ...................................................................	15
	3.2.2 Manually Configuring AP Parameters .....................................................................................	17
3.3	Completing the Connection Wizard ...................................................................................................	18
Chapter	4
Status ...................................................................................................................................................		21
4.1	WRE2206 Status ...............................................................................................................................	21
	4.1.1 Summary: Packet Statistics ....................................................................................................	23
	4.1.2 Summary: WLAN Station Status ..........................................................................................	24
4.2	Navigation Panel ...............................................................................................................................	24
Chapter	5
Tutorials...............................................................................................................................................		26
5.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	26

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		Table of Contents
5.2	Connecting a Wireless Client using WPS .........................................................................................	26
	5.2.1 Push Button Configuration (PBC) ............................................................................................	26
	5.2.2 PIN Configuration ....................................................................................................................	28
5.3	Connecting the WRE2206 to an AP ..................................................................................................	29
	5.3.1 Connecting to an AP with the WPS PBC Method ....................................................................	30
	5.3.2 Connecting to an AP with the WPS PIN Method .....................................................................	31
	5.3.3 Selecting an AP from an Automatically Detected List .............................................................	32
	5.3.4 Selecting an AP by Manually Entering Security Information ...................................................	34

Part II: Technical Reference............................................................................		36
Chapter	6
Wireless LAN.......................................................................................................................................		38
6.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	38
6.2 What You Can Do .............................................................................................................................		38
6.3	What You Should Know ....................................................................................................................	38
	6.3.1 Wireless Security Overview .....................................................................................................	39
6.4	General Wireless LAN Screen .........................................................................................................	40
6.5	MAC Address List .............................................................................................................................	41
6.6	Wireless LAN Advanced Screen .......................................................................................................	42
6.7	Quality of Service (QoS) Screen .......................................................................................................	43
6.8 WPS Screen ......................................................................................................................................		43
6.9	WPS Station Screen ..........................................................................................................................	44
6.10 AP Select Screen ............................................................................................................................		45
Chapter	7
LAN ......................................................................................................................................................		47
7.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	47
7.2 What You Need To Know ..................................................................................................................		47
7.3	LAN IP Screen ..................................................................................................................................	47
Chapter	8
System .................................................................................................................................................		49
8.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	49
8.2 What You Can Do .............................................................................................................................		49
8.3	System Password Screen ................................................................................................................	49
Chapter	9
Tools ....................................................................................................................................................		50
9.1	Overview ...........................................................................................................................................	50
9.2 What You Can Do .............................................................................................................................		50

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Table of Contents

9.3	Firmware Upload Screen ..................................................................................................................	50
9.4	Configuration Screen ........................................................................................................................	52
	9.4.1 Backup Configuration ..............................................................................................................	53
	9.4.2 Restore Configuration ..............................................................................................................	53
	9.4.3 Back to Factory Defaults .........................................................................................................	54
9.5	Restart Screen ..................................................................................................................................	54
9.6	LED Screen .......................................................................................................................................	54

Chapter	10
Troubleshooting..................................................................................................................................			56
10.1		Power, Hardware Connections, and LEDs ......................................................................................	56
10.2		WRE2206 Access and Login ..........................................................................................................	57
10.3		Internet Access ...............................................................................................................................	58
10.4		Resetting the WRE2206 to Its Factory Defaults ..............................................................................	60
10.5		Wireless Problems ..........................................................................................................................	60
Appendix	A Legal Information............................................................................................................		61
Index ....................................................................................................................................................			69

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WRE2206 User’s Guide

PART I

User’s Guide

7

8

1

Introduction

1.1 Overview

The WRE2206 (N) is a universal repeater that is an access point and a wireless client at the same time. The WRE2206 (N) wirelessly relays communications from its wireless clients to the access point.

Figure 1 Universal Repeater

WLAN

AP

N

Your can create the following connections using the WRE2206:

•LAN. You can connect network devices via the Ethernet port of the WRE2206 so that they can communicate with each other and access the Internet.

•WLAN. Wireless clients can connect to the WRE2206 to access network resources.

Use a (supported) web browser to manage the WRE2206.

See Chapter 4 on page 21 for more information.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.2 Securing the WRE2206

Do the following things regularly to make the WRE2206 more secure and to manage the WRE2206 more effectively.

•Change the password. Use a password that’s not easy to guess and that consists of different types of characters, such as numbers and letters.

•Write down the password and put it in a safe place.

•Back up the configuration (and make sure you know how to restore it). Restoring an earlier working configuration may be useful if the device becomes unstable or even crashes. If you forget your password, you will have to reset the WRE2206 to its factory default settings. If you backed up an earlier configuration file, you would not have to totally re-configure the WRE2206. You could simply restore your last configuration.

1.3Front Panel

Figure 2 Front Panel

WPS Button

Signal Strength				Number of Clients Indicator

Ethernet Port

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WRE2206 User’s Guide

Chapter 1 Introduction

The following table describes the LEDs and the WPS button.

Table 1 Front Panel LEDs and WPS Button

LED			STATUS	DESCRIPTION
Signal Strength			3 LED On	The signal strength is 50-100%.
			2 LED On	The signal strength is 25-50%.
			1 LED On	The signal strength is <25%.
				The WRE2206 is in the process of starting up.
			Off	No signal detected, disconnected or the LED is turned off in the firmware.
Number of			1 LED On	The number of wireless clients connecting to the WRE2206 is greater than or
Clients Indicator				equal to ten.
			2 LED On	The number of wireless clients connecting to the WRE2206 is greater than or
				equal to five, but less than ten.
			3 LED On	The number of wireless clients connecting to the WRE2206 is greater than or
				equal to one, but less than five.
				The WRE2206 is in the process of starting up.
			Off	The wireless LAN is not ready.
				The number of wireless clients connecting to the WRE2206 is zero.
WPS			On	This remains on for 5 minutes after a successful WPS connection has been
				established.
			Blinking	The WRE2206 is waiting for another WPS device to connect.
			Slowly	The WRE2206 is in the process of starting up, rebooting or resetting.
			Blinking	The WRE2206 fails to connect to a router or AP using WPS.
			Rapidly
			Off	There is no WPS connection established or a WPS connection has been
				established for more than five minutes, or the LED is turned off in the
				firmware.

1.4 The WPS Button

The WPS button can be used to begin WiFi Protected Setup (WPS), reboot the WRE2206 while keeping it’s configuration or reboot the WRE2206 to factory default configuration.

Table 2 WPS Button Functions

ACTION	RESULT
Push once or hold for	The WRE2206 begins connecting to an AP via WPS. See Section 5.3 on
less than 5 seconds	page 29.
Push twice	The WRE2206 begins connecting to a wireless client via WPS. See Section
	5.2 on page 26.
Hold for 5 to 10 seconds	The WRE2206 keeps its configuration and reboots.
Hold for more than 10	The WRE2206 resets its configuration to factory defaults and reboots. See
seconds	Section 2.3 on page 14.
Push three times	Push three times to turn off the WPS LED. After turning off the LED, the
	WRE2206 disconnects the connection to a wireless client via WPS and
	returns to the normal state.
	The physical WPS button has priority over the WPS button in the Web
	Configurator.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.4.1 WiFi Protected Setup

Your WRE2206 supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), which is an easy way to set up a secure wireless network. WPS is an industry standard specification, defined by the WiFi Alliance.

WPS allows you to quickly set up a wireless network with strong security, without having to configure security settings manually. Each WPS connection works between two devices. Both devices must support WPS (check each device’s documentation to make sure).

Depending on the devices you have, you can either press a button (recommended) on the device itself, or in its configuration utility or enter a PIN (a unique Personal Identification Number that allows one device to authenticate the other) in each of the two devices. When WPS is activated on a device, it has two minutes to find another device that also has WPS activated. Then, the two devices connect and set up a secure network by themselves.

For more information on using WPS, see Section 5.2 on page 26.

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WRE2206 User’s Guide

2

The Web Configurator

2.1 Overview

This chapter describes how to access the WRE2206 Web Configurator and provides an overview of its screens.

The Web Configurator is an HTML-based management interface that allows easy setup and management of the WRE2206 via Internet browser. Use Internet Explorer 6.0 and later versions, Mozilla Firefox 3 and later versions, or Safari 2.0 and later versions. The recommended screen resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels.

In order to use the Web Configurator you need to allow:

•Web browser pop-up windows from your device. Web pop-up blocking is enabled by default in Windows XP SP (Service Pack) 2.

•JavaScript (enabled by default).

•Java permissions (enabled by default).

Refer to Chapter 10 Troubleshooting to see how to make sure these functions are allowed in Internet Explorer.

2.2Accessing the Web Configurator

1Make sure your WRE2206 hardware is properly connected and prepare your computer or computer network to connect to the WRE2206 (refer to the Quick Start Guide).

Note: Your computer or the part of your network connected to the WRE2206 must be on the same subnet as the WRE2206.

The WRE2206’s DHCP server is enabled before the WRE2206 is associated with your AP or wireless router and disabled after association. If this is the first time you are accessing your WRE2206, you can configure your computer as a DHCP client (computer factory default) so it will get an IP address automatically from the WRE2206. After the WRE2206 is associated with your wireless router, your computer will get its IP address from the wireless router.

2Launch your web browser.

3If this is the first time you are accessing your WRE2206, type "http://192.168.1.2" as the website address in your web browser. This is the default LAN IP address. Alternatively, after the WRE2206 has successfully associated with your wireless router, type "http://zyxelsetup" instead of the default IP address.

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Chapter 2 The Web Configurator

4Type admin (default) as the user name and 1234 (default) as the password and click OK. Figure 3 Login Screen

2.3 Resetting the WRE2206

If you forget your password or IP address, or you cannot access the Web Configurator, press the WPS button for more than 10 seconds to reload the factory-default configuration file. This means that you will lose all configurations that you had previously saved, the username will be reset to admin and password will be reset to 1234. The IP address will be reset to “192.168.1.2”.

1Press and hold the WPS button, the WPS LED begins flashing immediately.

2Release the WPS button. The WRE2206 reloads factory defaults and begins to reboot.

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WRE2206 User’s Guide

3

Connection Wizard

3.1 Overview

This chapter provides information on the wizard setup screens in the Web Configurator.

The Web Configurator’s wizard setup helps you configure your device. The first time you access the WRE2206 Web Configurator, the wizard displays automatically. For subsequent access, click to start the wizardsetup.

3.2 Configuring the WRE2206 for Connection to an AP

In this step of the configuration wizard, you must configure the WRE2206 with the security parameters of the AP you want to connect to. These parameters can be configured by selecting those automatically detected by the WRE2206, or by configuring them manually. Manual configuration is useful when the AP is hidden.

3.2.1Selecting Automatically Detected AP Parameters

1Select an AP using the following screen. Figure 4 Wizard: Wireless Setup

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Chapter 3 Connection Wizard

The following table describes the labels in this screen.

Table 3 Network > Wireless LAN > AP Select

LABEL	DESCRIPTION
Select	Use the radio button to select the wireless device to which you want to connect.
SSID	This displays the Service Set IDentity of the wireless device. The SSID is a unique name
	that identifies a wireless network. All devices in a wireless network must use the same
	SSID.
MAC	This displays the MAC address of the wireless device.
Channel	This displays the channel number used by this wireless device.
Mode	This displays which IEEE 802.11b/g/n wireless networking standards the wireless device
	supports.
Security Mode	This displays the type of security configured on the wireless device. When no is shown, no
	security is configured and you can connect to it without a password.
Strength	This displays the strength of the wireless signal. The signal strength mainly depends on
	the antenna output power and the distance between your WRE2206 and this device.
Setup repeater	Select this to setup the AP manually.
manually
SSID	If Setup repeater manually is selected, use this field to type the SSID of the AP. This is
	useful when the AP’s SSID is hidden.
Refresh	Click this to search for available wireless devices within transmission range and update
	this table.
BACK	Click this to go back to the previous step in the wizard.
NEXT	Click this to start the next step in the AP setup process.
EXIT	Click this to exit the wizard.
Previous	Click this to see the previous page of APs.
Next	Click this to see the next page of APs.

Note: The wireless stations and WRE2206 must use the same SSID, channel ID, WPA-PSK (if WPA-PSK is enabled) or WPA2-PSK (if WPA2-PSK is enabled) for wireless communication.

2 Type a key. The number of characters accepted by the KEY field is shown in the following table.

Table 4 Maximum Key Lengths

ENCRYPTION	KEY FORMAT	KEY LENGTH
64-bit WEP	ASCII	5 characters
	Hex	10 characters
128-bit WEP	ASCII	13 characters
	Hex	26 characters
WPA pre-shared key	Passphrase	8-63 characters
	Hex	64 characters

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Chapter 3 Connection Wizard

Figure 5 Wizard: Type a Key

3.2.2 Manually Configuring AP Parameters

If the AP you want to connect to is not listed, then follow these steps to configure the security settings of the AP manually.

1Select Setup repeater manually.

2Type the SSID of the AP into the SSID field. Figure 6 Wizard: Manually Typing the SSID

3Configure the security settings. The number of characters accepted by the KEY field is shown in the following table.

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Chapter 3 Connection Wizard

Table 5 Maximum Key Lengths

ENCRYPTION	KEY FORMAT	KEY LENGTH
64-bit WEP	ASCII	5 characters
	Hex	10 characters
128-bit WEP	ASCII	13 characters
	Hex	26 characters
WPA pre-shared key	Passphrase	8-63 characters
	Hex	64 characters

Figure 7 Wizard: Manually Configuring Security Settings

3.3 Completing the Connection Wizard

1 Click Next. The key verification screen appears.

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Chapter 3 Connection Wizard

Figure 8 Wizard: Verifying the Key

The following screen appears if the key verifies successfully.

Figure 9 Wizard: Key Verification Success

The following screen appears if the key fails to verify. Click BACK and check the key.

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Chapter 3 Connection Wizard

Figure 10 Wizard: Key Verification Failed

2Click Apply to complete the wizard setup and restart the WRE2206. Figure 11 Connection Wizard Complete

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WRE2206 User’s Guide

4

Status

4.1 WRE2206 Status

The screen below shows the status screen.

Figure 12 Status Screen

The following table describes the icons shown in the Status screen.

Table 6 Status Screen Icon Key

ICON	DESCRIPTION
	Click this icon to open the setup wizard.
	Click this icon to view copyright and a link for related product information.

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