Message: 1 Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:38:21 +0100 From: "Rob Grant" r.grant@uea.ac.uk Subject: [ALUG] usb wireless card for visitors To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: 007001c7b1be$b35f2c50$018ede8b@UEA.AC.UK Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Visitors to UEA need to get their network cards registered in order to access our network. As a more convenient alternative, the technical support manager here suggested that our school buy two or three usb wireless cards which can be pre-registered and loaned to visitors.

Obviously, I'd like to make sure that whatever we get will have a good chance of working for any visitors who arrive with Linux laptops. Hence, any ideas on either of these would be appreciated. Rob

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Message: 2 Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:02:43 +0100 From: Simon Jude s.jude@uea.ac.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] usb wireless card for visitors

I'm not sure that you are aware of this, but the first time you connect to the UEA wifi network it asks you to register. I did this the other day with my laptop running ubuntu and it was registered and working straight away (although the registration page says it can take 20mins). I'm not sure how this works for 'guests' at UEA but there used to be a similar system for visitors wanting to use the UEA ethernet network connections. Alternatively, parts of UEA are covered by the Norwich-wide wifi which is free to use, and there are also numerous departmental wifi networks too that are accessible.

Message: 3 Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:15:42 +0100 From: Richard Lewis richardlewis@fastmail.co.uk

...

You can only register a network device's MAC address if you have a valid UEA network user account. However, a single user account can register more than one device. So Rob, if you register some wireless cards, you (or whoever registers them) would be responsible for whatever use is made of them.

Also note that the University hosts a second wireless network provide by BT OpenZone which visitors can pay a fee to use.

http://www1.uea.ac.uk/print/home/services/units/is/services/itservices/netwo... pus/wireless

(apologies for UEA's ridiculous CMS-generated-ultra-long-just-to-annoy-pretty-much-everybody URLs).

And Simon, did you manage to use netreg.uea.ac.uk with a non-MSIE browser? I'm very impressed ;-)

Message: 4 Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:35:29 +0100 From: Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] usb wireless card for visitors

It is going to be a difficult search I am afraid, naturally you want to go the USB route rather than PCMCIA because not all new laptops have PCMCIA.

Of those that work a lot require a firmware image download (which is going to be difficult to do before you get the link up) and/or only work for specific hardware revisions (and it's not easy to buy a specific hardware revision of a card). For the former you could of course stick the firmware with installation instructions on a CD or USB keydrive

Then the range of wireless USB dongles that will play nicely with OSX without lots of fiddling (you mention wanting it to be Mac compatible too) is pretty limited, I am not even sure OSX will let you use a third party card if there is built in wireless hardware available.

Even Windows is a bit of a problem if the machine already has Wireless (and a fair percentage of recent laptops will) as you can get unexpected behaviour by adding an additional card. Even more so if there is no way to make the existing wireless card disappear without disabling the driver in the device manager. And things only get worse if the existing card has a third party connection management bundle of nastiness on the taskbar.

I've tried to help Coffee shops and pubs etc with this sort of set up before and to be honest it is more trouble than it is worth.

Perhaps you should ask the UEA should consider having a area on their MAC registration page where a temporary visitor pass can be granted, perhaps this would have restricted access compared to a fully registered MAC. It just strikes me that offering pe-registered cards for loan effectively weakens the presumed reasoning for having the MAC lockdowns in the first place.

Sorry I usually try to be more positive about the advice I give :-)

Message: 6 Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:47:43 +0100 From: Simon Jude s.jude@uea.ac.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] usb wireless card for visitors To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: 4677A63F.2030200@uea.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

...

And Simon, did you manage to use netreg.uea.ac.uk with a non-MSIE browser? I'm very impressed ;-)

Yep, that worked fine, it even identified me as using linux! (just don't tell ITCS I'm running Linux!!! ;-))

Simon

Wayne Stallwood wrote:

...

O Perhaps you should ask the UEA should consider having a area on their MAC registration page where a temporary visitor pass can be granted, perhaps this would have restricted access compared to a fully registered MAC. It just strikes me that offering pe-registered cards for loan effectively weakens the presumed reasoning for having the MAC lockdowns in the first place.

It might be worth checking whether they have this already.

Simon, Richard, Wayne,

thanks very much, that is very helpful. I anticipated that the IT manager would come back with a suggested card and wanted to see if I could propose something Linux usable- if you are right Wayne it seems more likely that the IT manager will come back and say that the whole idea is flawed even for MS machines. If a speaker turns up at 12pm wanting to access the internet during his talk, catch up on a few emails in the common room afterwards then be on a train at 5pm, we don't want to be poking around in his wireless card configuration trying to disable the built in one and enable our usb one. Apart from the hassle a visitor might feel justifiably annoyed if they then get back home and have problems getting their own wireless connections working again.

I appreciate the info regarding the BT and Norwich networks. I think though that we are keen to offer the courtesy of a free connection to our guests and the Norwich city network has an uncertain future. Plus, how good is indoors reception with these?

Looks like I should bring my own laptop in and try all the options with both Ubuntu and XP. Then if necessary our school can do what it can to push for a streamlining of the visitor registration process. I don't want to over push the linux thing at UEA as I get the feeling that attitudes to FOS in general vary considerably among our technical people here and I don't want to come across as too much of a trouble maker. I'm especially wary as someone with low technical knowledge- but you have given me some useful pointers to do what little I can here.

Best wishes,

Rob

Rob Grant Lecturer in Development Economics School of Development Studies University of East Anglia NR4 7TJ +44(0)1603592324 r.grant@uea.ac.uk