Network management to establish and maintain the health and security of a computing network, such as a home network. A
network management tool may identify the
media access control (MAC) address for each device in the network, and allow a user to identify which devices are authorized to be a member of the network. If the network gateway device supports
MAC address filtering, a user can then employ the
network management tool to configure the
router to exclude non-authorized devices from joining or remaining in the network based upon their MAC addresses. Further, the
network management tool may allow a user to configure a
wireless gateway device to stop
broadcasting its
service set identifier (SSID), change the SSID, or both, identify to the user when a
wireless gateway device is using
encryption, and, if so, what type of
encryption. Still further, the tool may monitor the status of various
software applications on devices in the network, and then alert a user if the status of any of the devices in the network requires attention. Further, the network
management tool may provide recommendations to a user for correcting or changing the status of the monitored
software applications.