College Enterprise Network

[l CIII l]

Hey, been trying to game online at my college since I arrived and basically I've gotten permission to make a proposal to the IT department by the head of the dorms. My question is what exactly do I ask? The network can be connected to wirelessly because it's not WEP or WEP2 home networks. So if I just ask them to turn the Ethernet ports back on in requested rooms and then ask them to open gaming ports from the other side would I be good to go?

 

[carnageX]

Re: [B]College Enterprise Network[/B]

Well...we don't really know what your issue is so it's hard for us to make any suggestions.

 

[setishock]

Re: [B]College Enterprise Network[/B]

They have ports closed and restrictions on the network for a reason. Getting your own internet is not expensive. Might ask them about that. AT&T Uverse starts at 50 a month for 50 down and 10 up.

 

[l CIII l]

Re: [B]College Enterprise Network[/B]

It's an Enterprise network that requires a username and password to use (which Xbox and PS are incapable of doing). So the only way I can get a connection now is to run a bridge through my laptop and then I get internet but my NAT type is always strict and I can't even connect to online games

 

[l CIII l]

Re: [B]College Enterprise Network[/B]

So if I ask them to open them up would I be golden? I have though about getting wifi but college = poor so I want to stretch the free options before paying for anything

 

[1etherer]

Yes

 

[root]

you want to be careful about cost...

When I went to university, the network in the campus dorm rooms was referred to as "res net" and cost some amount per year to put on. then you could have two computers if you wanted connected to a hub or switch that you just plugged into the wall. (but most people didn't have two computers, online gaming wasn't really a thing, and consoles didn't have network ports.

anyway, the suggestion to "get internet" probably won't work, it's not your land, not your building, and may be an apartment somewhere that the utility couldn't run a cable, AND given that the academic year is shorter than the calendar year, most students aren't still in dorms to get lines taken out. so it becomes a massive headache for the college/university...
And so in most places it is a condition of your tenancy that you don't get a service installed.

when I worked in a university we applied port security to the switch ports that would lock them down to a given (and registered) MAC address.

you might be able to register the WAN side of a cable modem address and use that as a hub, (essentially just treating the campus network as a big DMZ)

 

[l CIII l]

We understood there would be some cost added to dorm rent but is the process really that complicated? I can run a connection now through my laptop but it's STRICT NAT type. So if they open up the ports on their end wouldn't we be good to go? Every room comes with Ethernet ports so couldn't we just get those turned back on? I understand what you're saying just wondering if it's really that hard to get online gaming going

Edit: the school currently has one universal wifi (SCWIFI) and two others called (SCVOIP) and (SCWIFI-Staff).

 

[root]

You're missing a few bits in this story.

First, actually you'd be surprised how much cost it adds, sure you may be lucky and get the guy who knows his stuff and goes great, but then you may get the guy who can't work his own computer and comes back with more questions day after day after day, expecting his tech problems solved because he has paid for that connection (blanket bans avoid silly support tickets)
(I recall I once recommended a hosting company I use to a fefriend £14 for a small amount of space and bandwidth for personal sites, in the first month he had logged support requests at a rate of almost two per day, I felt really bad for ever helping him, in the first month he wiped out probably a decade worth of profit on his account for that hosting company because he couldn't understand the FAQs and setup guides. (Which he had access to before he bought the service!)

Second, you're sharing that connection with everyone else, it's not a case of fair use, it's a case that people tying to get material online for work is just more important than the games you want to play! -so the it department don't want you to playing games.

Sure you could set up QOS for all the different traffic (assuming the equipment can handle that) but again that adds a support and maintenance overhead, not to mention with Cisco the difference between a 3750 that supports QOS macros applied to ports, and a 2960 that supports QOS but not via macros (so each port needs to be configured) is a more than a grand per device more expensive...

Then
Strict nat and open nat are just buil terms made up by Microsoft.

Strict nat effectively refers to saying you have a statefull firewall (any modern firewall) whilst open nat means you have setup port forwarding.

Whilst open nat essentially specifies that you've setup port forwarding.

Which is great at home where you have one Xbox, if there are a hundred students all wanting specific ports forwarded to them that can't be done. (A single port on a single external address can only be mapped to a single inside device...)


All that said...
When I worked at a university the institution had a big block of addresses (/16 I think) so all internal computers got non education 1918 addresses. If you have a non rfc 1918 address you might be able to have your own router and set up port forwarding on your own device.

 

[Emilio]

I wrote a pretty good article on CyberSecurity of School systems. See if it's something you can propose: Cyber Security of Higher Education