Bill wrote:

My son is at U of Ottawa and would like to put a router in his office to run his laptop and perhaps a NAS box. I can't see that this would be any different from what we do at home, so it should work.

Perhaps there are administrative concerns that Gilbert would be familiar with. Does this happen at UofM? I suspect a wi-fi port might be unwelcome.

Administrative concerns will vary from one site to another, so your son should check with U Ottawa's Computing and Communications Services to find out what their policy is with regards to NAT routers on their network. Here at the U of M, they are not officially allowed by IST's policy, though they tend not to actively enforce that policy as long as they don't cause any problems.

Rogue wi-fi hotspots will almost always be unwelcome because the potential for either interference with authorized equipment, or security vulnerabilities, is too great to run the risk. Wired-only setups tend to be less problematic, but can still cause problems in improperly configured or if the hardware is a bit flaky. (Home routers are not built to the same tolerances as the equipment universities will deploy on their networks.)

Gilles