WPA vs WPA2.

[bill.hurley]

A customer has Handheld Scanner which is not compatible with WPA2. However on the AP I have both WPA and WPA2 checked. The Scanner is compastible with WPA. Shouldn't this work without WPA2 being disabled?

[Stephen Rodriguez]

Bill,

     Some clients, mainly the lowend stuff, don't like the beacons/probes to have too much in the IE.  Generally for handheld scanners, you only want to enable what they support.  So in this case, you only want WPA/TKIP to be enabled.

laptops, and phones tend to be smarter, and can handle the extra IE's.

HTH,

Steve

[George Stefanick]

I will piggy back on Steve's comment.. You wll want to make sure you get the "exact" setting ... Vendors will allow you to inter mix. Like WPA with TKIP and AES. Some clients struggle when they see that beacon (most times older clients).

WPA and WPA2 come in 2 authentication types.

1. Enterprise - Which requires a back end radius server and "advance" configuration
2. PSK - PreShared Key. This is a passphrase

Encryption - You will also see 2 encryption types.

1. TKIP
2. AES

3 Easy Steps to remember

1- Pick the right WPA type (WPA or WPA2)

2- Pick the right Authentication (enterprise or PSK)

3- Pick the right Encryption