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Due to the way 802.11b/g wireless networking operates, there are only a small handful of separate channels which can be used. In general these will ALL be occupied at any given University site, as adjacent cells overlap each other in an attempt by the network managers to provide continuous coverage.
It is therefore ESSENTIAL that you do not operate any other wireless base station WITHOUT FIRST obtaining permission. For Informatics areas you should contact support to discuss requirements. Elsewhere in the University you should contact EUCS in the first instance.
You MUST ensure that your laptop is NOT configured for any form of peer-to-peer wireless networking without first obtaining permission. If you normally have this enabled for use elsewhere you MUST TURN IT OFF when operating within one of the University's wireless network zones.
Failure to follow this rule may break the network for other users, even if you yourself are not using it. At the very least this will make you extremely unpopular, and may be treated as a breach of the University Computing Regulations.
This page contains instructions for using the "central" wireless network.
The "central" wireless service operates University-wide as well as within Informatics, providing users with a uniform access mechanism and set of procedures regardless of location.
DICE managed laptops are set up to provide wireless connectivity to Informatics and beyond using OpenVPN. There is no need to register with EUCS to use this, as the authentication mechanism used provides a sufficient audit trail. There are two simple steps:
renc command to obtain or renew your kerberos and
kx509 credentials in the usual way; and
infvpn command to bring the tunnel to Informatics
up.
The tunnel will be taken down automatically when the machine is suspended
or halted; alternatively, the command infvpn down can
be used to effect this manually.
This mechanism will also work from many ISPs and remote sites, provided any remote firewall's policies do not intervene. In this case only traffic to Informatics hosts will be passed over the tunnel by default (contact support to arrange to have traffic to all of EdLAN passed over the tunnel).
Users of self-managed machines will first have to register to use the "central" wireless network.
(Visitors may be able to make use of registration at their home site, as the University is part of the pilot UK-wide Location Independent Networking project. Please consult these instructions for certificate and configuration information. Failing that, their local sponsor should contact support to obtain a temporary visitor account.)
Once a wireless account has been obtained, users of self-managed machines should set the SSID to "central", ensure WEP has been turned off, and use DHCP for network configuration. Following successful association with the network, there is a choice of authentication mechanisms:
NOTE that it has been reported that ICMP echo replies may have to be enabled for this to work reliably, and that the XP SP2 built-in firewall disables these by default.
The site map for EUCS's EdLAN access pages provides a useful starting point for those looking for more information regarding the "central" wireless service.
Users of DICE managed laptops should find that printing works normally after they bring the OpenVPN tunnel up. The DICE laptops document (under revision, URL to follow) describes how to synchronise files between the local disc and the Informatics network fileservers.
Users of self-managed laptops should connect to our SAMBA service for both file access and printing.
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Tel: +44 131 651 5661, Fax: +44 131 651 1426, E-mail: school-office@inf.ed.ac.uk Please contact our webadmin with any comments or corrections. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all material is copyright © The University of Edinburgh |
