Wireless Networking: Policies and Instructions
You can sign up to register your laptop with the School of Education wireless network online.
Please review our policy statement and instructions before filling out this form.
Wireless Policy and Instructions for Registration
Technology Services now supports a limited use of wireless networking in the School of Education Building. Because of security concerns, we are requiring that laptops be registered with us before we allow access to our network. We are providing support for faculty, staff, and grad students, but only in certain areas of the building. These areas consist of all the SEB classrooms and auditoria.
Registration
This registration can be done online, but requires the use of the Media Access Channel (MAC) address of any given laptop. The MAC address is a hard-wired number embedded in everything that can talk to a network; network cards, wireless cards, some logic boards, etc. In order to join our wireless network, you will need to extract this number from your system and report it to us. Our wireless system will only talk to MAC addresses we have registered. If you want the capability to attach both wirelessly and via a wire (wirelessly in a classroom, and via cable in your office, for instance), you will need to register both the MAC address of your wireless receiver card and the one embedded in your laptop's ethernet port.
Support
Technology Services only provides support for laptops owned by the University; if you paid for your laptop with your own money, we will enable your connection, but it is up to you to implement and support it. We currently support the following for UM-owned laptops:
- Macintosh PowerBooks with AirPort cards or PCM-CIA cards made by Lucent or Farallon
- PC Laptops with Intel or Lucent cards
We may be supporting other units in the future. If you are faculty or staff, and are contemplating the purchase of a laptop, please send an inquiry to us, and we can advise you on current recommended systems.
Personal or Departmental Broadcast Stations
Because of the way that stations interact with each other and the network as a whole, Technology Services controls where and how these are deployed. We also maintain sole system administration rights for each of these devices as we may need to tweak settings in response to problems others are having. If you would like to purchase such a device for your area, contact Technology Services or 764-5427.
Seminars and Conferences
Because our auditoria and meeting rooms are now covered by our broadcasters, there has been interest in providing wireless Internet access for visitors' laptops. This is an area fraught with complications, as all the participants will need to register with us. If you are contemplating providing this to yourvisitors, please contact Technology Services 2 weeks in advance of your event.
Finding MAC Addresses
PC running Windows 2000/XP:
1. From the Start Menu, choose Run
2. Type cmd. A DOS box will pop up
3. Type ipconfig /all (note the space before "/all")
4. The 12 digit hexidecimal number listed next to the Physical Address is the
ethernet MAC address. It will look like 00-C0-4F-14-A9-B6
PC running Windows 98:
1. From the Start Menu, choose Run
2. Type winipcfg and click OK. A dialog box will pop up
3. Make sure that the pop up list displays the 3Com Ethernet Adapter information
4. The 12 digit hexidecimal number listed next to the Adapter Address is the
ethernet MAC address. It will look like 00-C0-4F-14-A9-B6
Macintosh System 9:
1. From the Apple Menu Control Panels, choose TCP/IP
2. From TCP/IP , choose connect via Ethernet
3. From the FILE Menu, choose Get Info
4. A dialog box will pop up.
5. The ethernet MAC address will be listed next to HARDWARE ADDRESS. It will
look like 00 50 E4 E6 A3 18
1. From the Apple Menu Control Panels, choose TCP/IP
2. From TCP/IP , choose connect via Airport
3. From the FILE Menu, choose Get Info
4 A dialog box will pop up.
5. The ethernet MAC address will be listed next to HARDWARE ADDRESS. It will
look like 00:50:E4:E6:A3:18
Macintosh OS X:
1. From the 'Apple' Menu, choose 'System Preferences'.
2. Choose 'Network'.
3. Make sure that the 'TCP/IP' tab is highlighted.
4. Write down the 'Ethernet address'. It will look like: 00:A1:2B:34:C5:D6.
For Wireless, click on the Show AirPort button. The AirPort ID will be shown, looking like the number above. This is the wireless MAC address.
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