Apple Time Capsule
I bought a 1TB Apple Time Capsule today. I plan on replacing my Linksys WRT54G and a Dell Linux Samba server I have.
As usual, Apple nails the out-of-box experience. Pop the CD in, run the utility, follow the directions presented, and the Time Capsule was up and running in about 5 minutes (3 of which were spent rearranging cables to accommodate the new machine).
The utility software picked up the un-configured Time Capsule and walked me through the configuration in just a few simple steps. After confirming that my cable modem used DHCP, entering a password for disk access, and entering a WPA2 password, everything was up and online.A nice little touch, the utility software that configured the Time Capsule’s wireless network automatically reconfigured my Airport card to connect to the WPA2 secured 802.11N network on the Time Capsule.
After getting online, I opened up the Time Machine configuration setting pane, selected ‘Change Disk’, picked the Time Capsule out of the list, and that was it - it’s now doing DHCP, Wifi, NAS, TimeMachine hosting (for both Macbooks), and routing/NAT’ing my cable modem, with a grand total of 5 minutes of configuration and maybe half a dozen clicks. Fairly impressive!
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Chris
It’s great until you try to forward a range of ports….that’s when the whole thing comes crashing down. Hopefully Apple will provide a firmware update in the not to distant future.
Also I’d be interested in hearing what people think of it’s security. I purchased a 500GB one, and the security concerns me. Being a router AND a storage device for all my personal information is a little scary. The fact that nmap reports the samba related ports in a quick scan seems unusual. Granted they are reported as “filtered” but still…..why would a router provide that information on the WAN?
Mar 17th, 2008
adam
Did you have the ‘Share disks over Ethernet WAN port’ option checked by any chance?
An nmap of mine shows:
PORT STATE SERVICE
25/tcp filtered smtp
80/tcp filtered http
135/tcp filtered msrpc
136/tcp filtered profile
137/tcp filtered netbios-ns
138/tcp filtered netbios-dgm
139/tcp filtered netbios-ssn
445/tcp filtered microsoft-ds
593/tcp filtered http-rpc-epmap
1433/tcp filtered ms-sql-s
I assume that most of those are uPNP or NAT or something, as I can’t imagine what it could be using on half the ports…
They are inaccessible from the WAN, as well as from within. I wonder if Apple just didn’t feel like changing the binding of the ports to not be */0.0.0.0, and that’s why they show up on both interfaces. The box runs OSX, doesn’t it?
Mar 17th, 2008
Ethan
Don’t forget to read the Wired article about Apple:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple
Mar 19th, 2008
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