[RndTbl] A LAN in the office

[Gilles Detillieux]

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

-- 
Gilles R. Detillieux              E-mail: <grdetil at scrc.umanitoba.ca>
Spinal Cord Research Centre       WWW:    http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/
Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba  Winnipeg, MB  R3E 0J9  (Canada)