1st issue. Anyone that runs a secure WiFi network in WPA PSK mode should be using a pseudo-random generated WiFi key that is made up of a 63 character printable ASCII code. An example of a wifi key like this is as follows.
wp}1*9j}]K=$fRPAH>s'iei{$Fc4wq"SXchgDPSt6PaT|x})f&&dU%6[4lk#1cn
Call me paranoid (Im an IT Systems Admin for a global company) this will eliminate successful brute force and Dictionary key hack attacks on your wireless network. People that use words (even long ones) are opening themselves up to being brute force or dictionary hacked. That in mind I use a key generated in this manner that I change periodically. I keep my key in a text file on a thumb drive in a safe place and apply it by copy/paste into any device that needs it. Even my Android does copy/paste. The WiFi Setup utility does not. Cannot paste in the green box. that would really be helpful.
2nd issue. being the WiFi utility was useless for my WiFi network and I am not willing to "dumb down" my key I moved to method two and pasted my key into the arduino wifi config sketch and attempted to upload that code to my RA+ with the concept of loading that code to my RA+ and then using the RA+ to program my WiFi. Strike two... lol If you look at my sample key above you will notice just after the lowercase wq there happens to be a " quote. Of course the compiler bombed out on me trying to compile because it was unable to understand anything after the " quote. This is not as big a deal as I can just tweak my key to not have reserved characters in it and I change my key every few months. So last night I changed my key to one without a " quote in it and used the RA+ to program my Wifi. Got the Job done but would have preferred using the WiFi Tool and didnt want to hand type my key for obvious reasons. lol
3rd issue. After I got everything set up I realized the WiFi module is in DHCP mode. Not horrible but this forces you to use a DHCP address that CAN and WILL change unless your DHCP server is smart enough to allow DHCP reservations based on device MAC address. What will happen here is there is a good chance that after your DHCP lease expires your WiFi module will get a new IP if it reboots for any reason and any router/firewall configs you have manually configured will need to be re configured fairly frequently. You can get around this with a functioning Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) config on your router (provided you are not also using a separate firewall (Cisco PIX Firewall comes to mind) or a device that does not support Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) config. The part of this that really sucks is that if your depending on your WiFi module to help you keep an eye on your tank while out of town on a business trip and the WiFi modules IP address changes you will loose contact with your WiFi module and thus your controller. I searched the forums and see it is possible to set a static IP for the WiFi mod and will be doing that for myself, but it would be really cool if the WiFi tool would allow you to do this. It is a WiFi Setup utility after all
I have not yet examined the Arduino WiFi config sketch but it would also be cool to be able to config static IP in that sketch as well. Just some ideas for improvements. Got it up and running but it could have been much easier.
Now off to set up a static WiFi IP
Nick
