Sunday, 3 January 2016

Configuring the Wi-Fi Pineapple Nano

With the new white user interface for the WiFi Pineapple, there are some things that are not quite apparent when you are setting it up. So here is my quickstart guide to configuring the Pineapple with Windows (10 in my case)

Setting up your network

Once you plug in your Pineapple, Windows begins to install the necessary drivers and set itself up to use the device. Once it is installed, the network adapter will appear in the Network and Sharing Center. You should now enable sharing from your internet enable network adapter to the Pineapple

I usually rename the adapters based on what I use them for because I have on average 6 different network cards attached to my machine at any given time.

To rename your network adapater, just open Network and Sharing Center, click on the Change adapater settings link in the left menu. Right click on the network you want to rename and click the Rename menu item. Your Pineapple will be the ASIX AX88772A USB2.0 to Fast Ethernet Adapter type. In the screenshot you can see that I have renamed mine to “Pineapple”

RenamedPineapple

Now you can share your internet access using the Internet Connection Sharing function in Windows. Right click on the network that has internet access and click Properties. Select the Sharing tab and check the box Allow other network users etc. Select the Pineapple from the dropdown and click OK

Sharing

A small caveat here. Sometimes (ie more times than I would like), Windows will change the IP address of the Pineapple to its own internal sharing address. So to be sure your settings are correct for the Pineapple by right clicking on the network adapter and clicking Properties. Double click Internet Protocal Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and check that your IP address is 172.16.42.42

ipv4

Configure defaults on the Pineapple

At this point, you can browse to http://172.16.42.1:147 and log into your Pineapple

pineappleLogin

First things first, you should update your timezone settings so you can see the correct timestamp against your logs. Go to http://172.16.42.1:1471/#/modules/Configuration and change your timezone to your local one. Remember to click Save Time Zone

timezone

 

Browse to the PineAp settings page http://172.16.42.1:1471/#/modules/PineAP

Here is where you can setup your default settings for your Pineapple to persist from session to session. In my case I have set the following

Defaults

If you want to persist these settings so that they stay the same between reboots, click on the dropdown arrow beside the Configuration titles to save the settings as default.

SaveDefaults

 

That will get you started at least with the Nano. The next post will detail how to create storage and swap partitions on a MicroSD card to use with the device.

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