Wireless Routers in UW Residence Hall Rooms
IT Connect > Connecting > Wireless > Residence Halls
- On This Page
- Network Connections You Have
- Do-it-yourself Wireless Responsibilities and Policies
- Configuring Your Wireless Routers
- Configuration Option One
- Configuration Option Two
- Multiple Wireless Routers
- Registration
Network Connections You Have
As a residence hall member, you currently have:
- Fast, reliable connectivity to the campus network and the Internet via data ports (10/100Mb Ethernet) in your room
- Wireless service in many common areas in UW residence halls
Cedar Apartments and Poplar Hall have UW-provided wi-fi on the residential floors. Therefore setting up personal wireless routers is prohibited in those buildings. In other residence halls you have the option of installing your own wireless network and connecting it to the data port in your room.
Do-It-Yourself Wireless Responsibilities and Policies
Be aware of the following before you decide to install your own wireless access point (WAP):
- You must provide your own technical support for installation, configuration, and ongoing maintenance of your equipment.
- You must comply with the network security policies of the University of Washington. (This means you are responsible for managing the security and activity of all computing devices on your wireless network.)
If you are willing to assume the above responsibilities for your own wireless network, please review the policies and specifically note that:
- Providing an open network connection that could be publicly accessed is prohibited.
- You must insure that your wireless network meets the security requirements outlined on the Web page above.
Configuring Your Wireless Router
Several points should be considered before setting up your wireless router:
- Each person in the residence halls has a limit on their bandwidth use rate. When you first connect a device like a computer to the residence hall networks, you will be prompted to register it by entering your UW NetID. You can register multiple devices, but the total use of all the devices counts against your bandwidth use limit.
- When you connect a wireless router to your residence hall dataport using Configuration Option One, the router is the device that is registered and all traffic going through it counts against the limit of the owner of the router.
- An alternative approach is to use (see Configuration Option Two where each device sending traffic through the router is individually registered by the device's owner.
- Multiple wireless routers in the same vicinity can interfere with each other, producing slow or sporadic behavior. Sometimes the only solution is to not use wireless.
Configuration Option One
In Option One, the wireless router is registered and the owner is responsible for all traffic going through the router. Who uses the router can be controlled by setting a password and allowing access to specific devices (identified by their MAC number) with the router's configuration menu.
In this configuration, the wireless router creates a local area network (LAN) and handles traffic going between the residence hall networks and the LAN, giving you some control abilities not available in Configuration Option Two.
- StepsActions
- Connect the cable from your computer to one of the LAN ports on the wireless router
- Using the computer's browser, go to the configuration
menu for your router (see the router's instructions).
- Use minimum power to reduce interference with
other devices.
In a residence hall, a wireless router that provides wider coverage (because of protocol or antenna choices) may experience decreased performance due to interference with other wireless routers.
- Have a unique SSID.
The name of your local network (the SSID) must be unique to avoid conflict with other networks. In order to insure uniqueness between your network and other resident hall networks, consider using your name (or nickname) plus your room number.
- This step is very important for preventing conflict between your wireless router and others nearby!
- Use encryption that will require a password to
connect.
Use WPA or, if WPA is not available, use WEP.
- Use hardware (MAC) address registration.
Rather than leave your wireless router open for anyone to access, explicitly allow your devices by entering their hadware addresses in the router's access configuration. Hardware addresses are also called MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. Check your user manual for each device for how to find its MAC address.
- Using the hardware address method is important as it restricts use of your wireless router to specific computers you know about. Without such explicit protection, someone you do not know could access and use your wireless router. If their computer is infected and tries to send spam or malware through the connection, all use of your data port could be blocked.
- Turn on the router's firewall, if one is available.
- Use minimum power to reduce interference with
other devices.
- Connect to the wall data port via the WAN or UPLINK port on your wireless router.
Configuration Option Two
In Option Two, the router has a passive role and each device connecting through it must be separately registered by its owner.
In this configuration, traffic simply passes through the router. Details of how to set this configuration up vary among various wireless routers; refer to the manual that came with your router. Also, because it has a more passive role, the wireless router probably will not offer firewall functionality with this arrangement.
- StepsActions
- Connect the cable from your computer to one of the LAN ports on the wireless router
- Using the computer's browser, go to the configuration
menu for your router (see the router's instructions).
- Turn off DHCP. This is IMPORTANT. Leaving it on WILL disrupt network traffic and will warrant shutting down your port.
- Use minimum power to reduce interference with other devices.
- Give the router a unique SSID.
- If available, use encryption that will require a password to connect. Use WPA or, if WPA is not available, use WEP.
- Connect the cable from your room's data port to one of the LAN ports on the wireless router
In this configuration, each person with a device connecting through the wireless router should turn on the firewall in each of their devices.
Sharing a Data Port
When a number of people share a limited number of data ports, you can use a hub or switch to connect multiple wireless routers and other devices.
- In this configuration, each wireless router has to be registered to a different person. Traffic through each router will count against its' owner's bandwidth use limit.
- Turn on the firewall in the wireless routers and in other devices you may connect to the hub or switch.
Register Your Devices
When finished configuring your router, the next step is registration. For the simple configuration, you will be registering the wireless router, associating it with the owner's UW NetID. For the more complicated configuration, the owner of each device connecting to the residence halls networks through the wireless router will be registering each of their devices seperately.
- StepsActions
- Establish a WiFi connection through your wireless router by selecting it from your device's WiFi configuration menu
- Using your browser, enter a URL to some site external to the UW such as Google.com.
- You will be prompted to enter your UW NetID and
password. Doing so will register the UW NetID as the
owner of the device, as identified by its hardware
address (MAC number).
- Until this step is successfully done, anyone using the device will only be able to access on campus sites.
- You can now use your device to access Internet sites on campus and beyond.
