Reference Manual for the 54 Mbps Wireless Travel Router WGR101
8
Glossary
February 2005 (202-10034-03)
router
A device that forwards data between networks. An IP router forwards data based on IP source and
destination addresses.
SSID
A Service Set Identification is a thirty-two character (maximum) alphanumeric key identifying a wireless
local area network. For the wireless devices in a network to communicate with each other, all devices must
be configured with the same SSID.
This is typically the configuration parameter for a wireless PC card. It corresponds to the ESSID in the
wireless Access Point and to the wireless network name.
See also
Wireless Network Name and ESSID.
Subnet Mask
A mask used to determine what subnet an IP address belongs to. Subnetting enables a network administrator
to further divide an IP address into two or more subnets.
An IP address has two components, the network address and the host address. For example, consider the IP
address 150.215.017.009. Assuming this is part of a Class B network, the first two numbers (150.215)
represent the Class B network address, and the second two numbers (017.009) identify a particular host on
this network.
Subnetting enables the network administrator to further divide the host part of the address into two or more
subnets. In this case, a part of the host address is reserved to identify the particular subnet. This is easier to
see if we show the IP address in binary format. The full address is: 10010110.11010111.00010001.00001001
The Class B network part is: 10010110.11010111
and the host address is 00010001.00001001
If this network is divided into 14 subnets, however, then the first 4 bits of the host address (0001) are
reserved for identifying the subnet.
The subnet mask is the network address plus the bits reserved for identifying the subnetwork. (By
convention, the bits for the network address are all set to 1, though it would also work if the bits were set
exactly as in the network address.) In this case, therefore, the subnet mask would be
11111111.11111111.11110000.00000000. It's called a mask because it can be used to identify the subnet to
which an IP address belongs by performing a bitwise AND operation on the mask and the IP address. The
result is the subnetwork address: Subnet Mask 255.255.240.000 11111111.11111111.11110000.00000000
IP Address 150.215.017.009 10010110.11010111.00010001.00001001
Subnet Address 150.215.016.000 10010110.11010111.00010000.00000000
The subnet address, therefore, is 150.215.016.000.
TCP/IP
The main internetworking protocols used in the Internet. The Internet Protocol (IP) used in conjunction with
the Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) form TCP/IP.
TLS
Short for Transport Layer Security, TLS is a protocol that guarantees privacy and data integrity between
client/server applications communicating over the Internet.
