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Thread: Q: University Halls Networks....

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    Senior Member ajones's Avatar
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    Q: University Halls Networks....

    Hello chaps,

    The eldest fruit of my loins has shuffled off to University, and asked me to get him a Wifi access point to connect to his Halls of Residence network connection. Shopping around I bought him an Edimax BR6342-nL wireless router. Set it up at home on my Virgin Broadband and everything worked peachy.

    The LAN is supplied to his room through a standard ethernet port, which when connected to any of his wired devices works fine (computer and game console). When switching between the two devices, the 15 lease time on the DHCP has to be allowed to expire otherwise the connection to the internet won't establish.

    Anyway, I connect the Wifi Router to the LAN port and run through the setup (and instantly discover I hate the Edimax GUI) and whilst I get an IP address, I'm not getting the University LAN DNS information, which is defaulted to the Edimax server in the setup. Further, I'm not getting any connection specific DNS suffix. When the computer connects to the Wifi router, it receives an IP address from it with the correct gateway address, but again does not get any DNS suffix. Windows 7 thinks that the adapter is connected to the internet, but Explorer sessions time out.

    I've mucked around with the config in the router (changing MAC address etc), factory reset the thing and tried again, but still can't get the flaming thing connected. There is a newer firmware available for the router, but before I do that, am I missing anything obvious?

    It's been 20 years since I was at Uni, and LAN connections in Halls weren't available back then, so any of you guys'n'gals offer any insight to the use of University LAN connections that I'm not thinking of?

    Thanks in advance!

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    Oh Crumbs.... Biscuit's Avatar
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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    when i was there you weren't allowed to do it Fraid i cant offer any help as to why it isnt working but one thing that did work in my halls was connecting a second device up using an additional network card in the PC.

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    DILLIGAF GoNz0's Avatar
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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    mac cloning may be the only option, but as of yet i have only been to one halls that allows wireless routers, the rest either have wireless or 1 wired connection.

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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    Which University?

    Most of them ban the connection of multiple devices to the network, and especially frown upon students setting up wireless networks.

    I work in one of the Halls at Manchester, and I know that if it's discovered, they'll be a lengthy disconnection from the network, and a decent fine.

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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    Why don't you just put OpenDNS addresses in manually, or plug in the PC, copy the DNS details down, and manually type them into the router? I feel like I'm missing something!

    As for banning routers and switches in rooms, I think in the modern day and age it's a ridiculous restriction to have, but that's another discussion.

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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    Thanks for the responses thus far.

    The IT guys running the network are perfectly happy for the router to be used. Their stipulation is in fair use of the bandwidth made available to the students and the legality of any software downloaded. In other words, the use of the router for multiple devices is kosher

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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    MAC cloning; may have to try that... always thought it to be an inelegant solution though.

    Manual DNS entry; will give that a go, as long as I can run my son through it over the phone! Could be tricky given that the Edimax GUI isn't the most user friendly I've ever come across, and the manual provided with the router (even the electronic version on their website) is out of date!

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    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    If he can already connect two devices (albeit leaving the DHCP lease time to expitre, then MAC cloning is unlikely to be the answer. From what you have said, it seems to be a DNS issue - if you type an IP address into the explorer bar, do you get a connection? (Try Google - 173.194.36.104 - for example)

    If that does work, then it is a DNS issue.

    What you don't know is how the University LAN gets its DNS information and how the Edimax router gets that.

    Solving it may not be so easy - but you could try the Open DNS solution Snootyjim suggests., either on the PC or (if the option exists) in the Edimax set up pages.

    One other thing - what IP range is the university handing out? It may be that the Edimax won't route to a private (class A, B or C) network as those shouldn't (and don't) exist on the public internet - which is what the Edimax thinks it is connecting to.
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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    Peter,
    I doubt the router would have an issue with Private ranges on its WAN port. But there is a real possibility that the WAN port might be giving out a subnet that the LAN is already using.

    1. Connect up a PC, and run ipconfig /all and note down all the details when the single IP works.
    2. Connect up another PC to the router (within the WAN connection plugged into it), and check that the LAN networking isnt conflicting with Uni's Network.

    Probably easiest, do the above, and let us know the information you can dig out from points 1 and 2.

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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    For DNS, you can just put in Google's DNS servers:

    8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

    It is possible that the halls are using the same IP space as the Edimax is giving out. The only way to know that is as someone else has said - connect up your PC, and do a:

    ipconfig /all

    From a command prompt. Alternatively, swap the wireless access port for a switch and your problem will almost certainly go away.

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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    One step at a time... forget DNS.

    Can you ping the outside world? If you can ping 8.8.8.8 then you have a route to google's DNS servers and it shouldn't be a big problem to sort out.

    If the subnet of the uni network is the same (or encompasses) the subnet used by the router's LAN side, then there could be a routing problem there, but that's beyond unlikely. Still, check that the WAN IP isn't alarmingly similar to the LAN IP. (As Sim0n says, lol).

    Now... remember DNS.

    Lots of routers grab the DNS data via DHCP, but assert themselves as the DNS server via their DHCP server to LAN clients, enabling them to act as a cache/passthru and to make it possible to resolve "my.router" or some other witty self referencing domain. And that's fine, provided the router has correct DNS settings, which if IP connectivity is OK, it seems it isn't, for whatever reason.

    If the PC/console work OK though, and have never had DNS set manually, that points to an issue with the router's configuration. In any case, manually punching google's DNS into the router shouldn't be a problem.

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    Senior Member ajones's Avatar
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    Re: Q: University Halls Networks....

    thanks for the input guys, but I had to reflash the router. It now picks up the correct routing info from the network. I think this will be the last time I buy Edimax!

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