Raju Mopidevi 's Blog

Question: How does one change the router password? Where are the controls and settings for the router ?

I recently wrote about several steps you should take to secure your router. One of those steps is to change the default password.

Several people wrote in to ask how to do that, as it's not at all clear how you access your router settings at all, much less the password screen.

I'll show you, step by step, how I access the settings on my LinkSys router
.

•

Now, I have to start by saying that unless you have a LinkSys, perhaps even the exact same model, your steps may be somewhat different. You really should be checking the documentation that comes with your router to get the specifics necessary to change settings on your device.
That being said, the concepts are generally the same for most consumer routers, and hopefully this will help you interpret those instructions a little more easily.

We start with your browser.
Routers don't have applications
or settings that you'll find on your computer anywhere. They're a separate device on your network, and as such need to be accessed across the network. Most router manufacturers have made this fairly easy by including a mini web-server inside the box that you use to access the settings.

You access your router's settings by entering its IP address in the address bar of your browser:

192.168.1.1 is a pretty common IP address for routers on small networks, but if that's not it, another "trick" that occasionally works is to open up a command prompt, enter "ipconfig" (followed by Enter), and look for a "default gateway":
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.5
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

In most cases, that's the IP address of your router.

Once you've entered your router's IP address into your browser's address bar and pressed "Enter", you should get an authorization request:

LinkSys router requesting authorization
Most all manufacturers have default settings for this. For example, if you have a LinkSys, the default is to leave the User name blank, and enter "admin" as the password. It's this very default setting that we're going to change, because as you can see - everyone knows it.

Once you enter the correct user name and password, press OK and you should land on your routers "home page" for configuration.