Wireless Networking

Questions/comments should be sent to "Kevin Johnson.

The ROC complex is equipped with a wireless (802.11b/g) network This network in ubiquitous in that the same wireless network exists in our building, on the Pickle Research Campus (BEG and the Commons) and on the UT campus (http://www.utexas.edu/its/network/wireless/coverage/index.html) . The network as a whole is called just "The Public Network". You've most likely already used the network without knowing anything about it, but if you do need help you can consult the University's documentation: http://www.utexas.edu/its/network/public/index.html.

Note the preferred method is the 802.1x authentication to restricted.utexas.edu. What is less obvious is that probably after this semester this will be the ONLY way connect to the wireless network. From http://www.utexas.edu/its/news/072006/8021x.html: The current Web-based authentication system will continue to be available through spring 2007, at which point UT Austin students, faculty, and staff will be required to move to 802.1X to meet compliance with federal, state, and UT System regulations. We've already found older wireless cards (that don't support WPA2) don't work at all with this network. If your card does not work, you will need to upgrade at some point.

Kevin has recently enabled Printing and File Sharing ports through our firewall. This should allow you to access printers and network file sharing from the wireless network. Note that you are on another network. Therefore you will either need to append the ".ig.utexas.edu" domain to host names (this is called dns suffices in Windows and search domains in MacOS; not preferred) or use fully qualified domain names (preferred) by appending ".ig.utexas.edu" when connecting to printer and file shares. (e.g. \\igdrasil.ig.utexas.edu\hp_3.228; \\utig.ig.utexas.edu\ftp\).

VPN Networking
Also available now is connecting to campus via the virtual private network. This gives you an avenue for connecting to file shares while away from the campus in a secure way. RIght now, the same Printing and File Sharing ports are open to the VPN network. If this proves to work well, it may become the preferred method for doing more extensive external network activity (think X11). We've already seen that it seems persnickety about the wireless network, so we'll see. Feedback about this is greatly appreciated. Everything you need to know about using this is available from the "Getting Started" link above.  Note that the VPN client does not use the Windows or Macintosh native network client so DNS suffices and Search domains do not work at all. Fully qualified domain names are your only option. Note also the time limits imposed by the UT on the VPN session.