When I use the airport utility to edit my base station configuration it doesn't prompt me for the base station password ... does this mean anyone can edit my airport extreme without knowing and supplying the password?
MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)
No, most likely, your base station's administrator password has be saved in the Keychain on your Mac.
You can verify this by using the Keychain Access utility. The base station administrator passwords would have the Kind value of "AirPort base station password."
Terry Dickinson wrote:
When I use the airport utility to edit my base station configuration it doesn't prompt me for the base station password ... does this mean anyone can edit my airport extreme without knowing and supplying the password?
ONLY if they use your Mac with your logon which as Tesserax pointed out has your Airport Extreme password saved in Keychain on YOUR Mac.
When I use the airport utility to edit my base station configuration it doesn't prompt me for the base station password ... does this mean anyone can edit my airport extreme without knowing and supplying the password?
This all depends on whether you are using the same password for the Base Station and the wireless network.
If you are using the same Base Station password as the Wireless network is using, then any user who is connected to your wireless will be able to access settings in AirPort Utility, if they have it installed on their device.
IF you are using a different Base Station password than the wireless network, then users on the wireless will not be able to access the settings using AirPort Utility.
The big question to ask here.......do you remember setting up separate Base Station and Wireless passwords, or did you only set up one password?
If you only set up one password, then now would be a very good time to set up a Base Station password for your AirPort router.
The big question to ask here.......do you remember setting up separate Base Station and Wireless passwords, or did you only set up one password?
I have two separate passwords, and since posting this a friend was over with her MBP so we ran a test and she could not edit my base station config without my password.
Thanks to all for the replies
That's the key........having a separate password for the base station and the wireless network.
Unfortunately, for the past 3 years, when you have a new AirPort to set up, Apple's configuration "wizard" will only ask for one password, and it will use that for both the base station and the wireless network. As a consequence, it's hard to imagine how many users are running their networks with a lot less security than they likely realize.
Just finished setting up my first Extreme and everything is working fine but, like you wrote, I only got requested for one password. As I understand it, I can easily change one or both of my passwords in Airport Utility. What happens if I keep my current password for the base station and make a new one for the wireless network? Right now I connect to the network automatically on all my devices. After a password change (to the wireless network), would I just be told that connecting to the network failed and be asked to enter a password? And would keychain update that new password (so I log on automatically the next time)?
What happens if I keep my current password for the base station and make a new one for the wireless network?
Any other user who wants to connect to your wireless network will be asked to provide the wireless network password. Your Mac will automatically store the password if you have enabled the option to have your Mac do this for you.
Other devices may offer the same option to "remember" the password for you, so you don't have to enter it each time that you want to connect.
base station password
