Can't access Internet on university hostel wired connection via router

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lchiu7

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Topic # 230562 1-Mar-2018 17:59

I am going to be careful here what I say since it might be a T&C issue.

A friend's son in in a university hostel and the only Internet is wired. As an aside that's not very friendly since this current generation are into phones, tablets etc with WiFi only.

Luckily the son does have a desktop with ethernet so he can access the net. But he wants to use his phone and tablet also. So we tried connecting a router to the port and create a small WiFi access point. It worked for a bit then stopped. We did see that when he connected his desktop it asked for a logon first and then from that time on, no further prompts occurred.

So I am guessing the university router is authenticating his logon and then his PC and the router cannot authenticate? So they turned on some authentication and it stopped working?

The router is a TP Link running Gargoyle so there is some flexibility in its configuration.

Theoretically, is there a way he can use the router and have WiFi or is he stuck having to use 4G?

Thanks

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Reply # 1966689 1-Mar-2018 18:03

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If it's a web portal logon, there probably isn't an easy way around that with the router.

You could buy a USB wifi dongle and use Windows connection sharing between the wired connection and the wifi dongle. (If it's OS X, i'm sure it probably has something similar, but i've never used it)

Lias

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Reply # 1966734 1-Mar-2018 19:00

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You won't be directly connected to the router, it will be connected to some sort of switch, and it's probable that the switch at the far end is limiting the number of devices that can connect, this is pretty standard for enterprise level networks.

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michaelmurfy

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Reply # 1966738 1-Mar-2018 19:07

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There shouldn't be any reason he couldn't just NAT it. Normally it is PPPoE (Christchurch halls) or DHCP with a page.

In the Christchurch halls you used to be able to sign up with Snap (now 2degrees) a normal internet plan and use that over it. I don't know if that policy has been changed.

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bagheera

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Reply # 1966741 1-Mar-2018 19:09

lchiu7:

A friend's son in in a university hostel and the only Internet is wired. As an aside that's not very friendly since this current generation are into phones, tablets etc with WiFi only.

to set up a wifi that can do 100+ people that does not stop working with that many people on it and using it would not be cheap or easy to do, with the budget hostel has, I can easily see why it wired only. As soon as you get over 10 devices thing get alot harder to do for wifi.

yitz

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Reply # 1966761 1-Mar-2018 19:42

Have you tried the 'clone MAC' function on the router? Not sure if it is all that common anymore but no doubt your custom firmware router is likely to provide that option.

I'm surprised the main campus Wi-Fi coverage does not extend to the halls of residence.

lchiu7

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Reply # 1966798 1-Mar-2018 22:12

Lias:

You won't be directly connected to the router, it will be connected to some sort of switch, and it's probable that the switch at the far end is limiting the number of devices that can connect, this is pretty standard for enterprise level networks.

So it's detecting that from one port, there should only be one device? The room has two ethernet ports and it appears both are live. So I wonder if he could direct connect his PC to one of the ports and the router to the other. The router would only have one connection even though it has 4 LAN ports, since it would only be acting as an AP?

We did the USB WiFi setup and that works fine but it means he has to leave his PC on all the time when he wants his WiFi devices to work. These include an Amazon Dot so it's a bit messy

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Lias

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Reply # 1966818 1-Mar-2018 23:22

lchiu7:

Lias:

You won't be directly connected to the router, it will be connected to some sort of switch, and it's probable that the switch at the far end is limiting the number of devices that can connect, this is pretty standard for enterprise level networks.

So it's detecting that from one port, there should only be one device? The room has two ethernet ports and it appears both are live. So I wonder if he could direct connect his PC to one of the ports and the router to the other. The router would only have one connection even though it has 4 LAN ports, since it would only be acting as an AP?

We did the USB WiFi setup and that works fine but it means he has to leave his PC on all the time when he wants his WiFi devices to work. These include an Amazon Dot so it's a bit messy

Maybe.. If they also have some form of captive portal that will make it harder. Out of curiosity has your son tried talking to the hostel/university IT services?

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wellygary

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Reply # 1966876 2-Mar-2018 08:43

lchiu7:

We did the USB WiFi setup and that works fine but it means he has to leave his PC on all the time when he wants his WiFi devices to work. These include an Amazon Dot so it's a bit messy

If there are two ports, then what about getting a raspberry pi or other cheap compute stick and set that up to run 24/7 as an wireless AP

lchiu7

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Reply # 1966900 2-Mar-2018 09:37

wellygary:
lchiu7:

We did the USB WiFi setup and that works fine but it means he has to leave his PC on all the time when he wants his WiFi devices to work. These include an Amazon Dot so it's a bit messy

If there are two ports, then what about getting a raspberry pi or other cheap compute stick and set that up to run 24/7 as an wireless AP

That's a good idea. I'll confirm that both ports are active and if so then get the Pi. But even if not he could leave the Pi on all the time and use WiFi on his desktop unless he wanted really fast access when he could then plug in the desktop directly.

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lchiu7

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Reply # 1966901 2-Mar-2018 09:38

Lias:
lchiu7:

Lias:

You won't be directly connected to the router, it will be connected to some sort of switch, and it's probable that the switch at the far end is limiting the number of devices that can connect, this is pretty standard for enterprise level networks.

So it's detecting that from one port, there should only be one device? The room has two ethernet ports and it appears both are live. So I wonder if he could direct connect his PC to one of the ports and the router to the other. The router would only have one connection even though it has 4 LAN ports, since it would only be acting as an AP?

We did the USB WiFi setup and that works fine but it means he has to leave his PC on all the time when he wants his WiFi devices to work. These include an Amazon Dot so it's a bit messy

Maybe.. If they also have some form of captive portal that will make it harder. Out of curiosity has your son tried talking to the hostel/university IT services?

Might be against policy so not at the moment 😉

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trig42

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Reply # 1966910 2-Mar-2018 09:52

Surely if you get it going, they will notice a WiFi network pop up?

Are you going to Hide the SSID (though, they'd still see it)?

noroad

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Reply # 1966985 2-Mar-2018 11:39

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I would guess they are limiting mac addresses on the port to one. Just put a standard wifi router on it and then use bog standard nat on the router, that way you only present one MAC upstream. Any "UFB" router (with tagging disabled) should do the trick.

lchiu7

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Reply # 1967010 2-Mar-2018 12:27

noroad:
I would guess they are limiting mac addresses on the port to one. Just put a standard wifi router on it and then use bog standard nat on the router, that way you only present one MAC upstream. Any "UFB" router (with tagging disabled) should do the trick.

The problem is you have to login to the router which might then store the client MAC address.

So the router is going to present a different MAC address and it won't authenticate.

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yitz

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Reply # 1967030 2-Mar-2018 13:25

lchiu7: So the router is going to present a different MAC address and it won't authenticate.

In which case use the clone MAC address function on your router, this duplicates the MAC address of the desktop onto the WAN interface of your router. As alluded to above though, there may be a captive portal authentication mechanism on top of this based on HTTP cookies which may or may not work depending on the setup. Still, worth a try.

In any case I would ask around, there has to be some sort of common Wi-Fi connection available, with so much course work hosted on a learning management system (LMS) these days it is something I would expect for a university endorsed hostel.

lchiu7

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Reply # 1967035 2-Mar-2018 13:34

yitz:
lchiu7: So the router is going to present a different MAC address and it won't authenticate.

In which case use the clone MAC address function on your router, this duplicates the MAC address of the desktop onto the WAN interface of your router. As alluded to above though, there may be a captive portal authentication mechanism on top of this based on HTTP cookies which may or may not work depending on the setup. Still, worth a try.

In any case I would ask around, there has to be some sort of common Wi-Fi connection available, with so much course work hosted on a learning management system (LMS) these days it is something I would expect for a university endorsed hostel.

No WiFi in the living areas, only in the common area.

Might try the cloning but if that falls through maybe a Pi if it can login to the portal or else use Windows connection sharing which works for the moment

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