Wireless in UCD

SRFC90

Whats the story with it? Brought in my laptop for thr 1st time today and the it would only let me access the UCD site? Google wouldn't even load or any other site at all for that matter, yet when i entered ucd.ie it came up instantly with UCD Connect working fine, but not Blackboard!?

Anyone know what the story might be? Whats the name of the Wireless Network yee all connect to!?

SirLemonhead

It's WaveLan.

You'll need to enter the UCD proxy details into your system to get acess to the other sites.

I'm assuming you're on Windows so if you open the web browser, go to the Tools menu item, then 'Internet Options', then the 'Connections' tab, click the Lan Settings button and click the 'use proxy settings for your lan' checkbox

then enter http://proxy.ucd.ie and port 8484 in the bottom section of that window. Should do it.

rainbow kirby

SirLemonhead wrote: »

I'm assuming you're on Windows :rolleyes:

Fix't. :pac:

alan4cult

Just on another note. How do you configure applications such as MSN and iChat to connect to the internet. I'm using a mac so rainbow you may be able to assist me?

rainbow kirby

I use Adium - which (surprisingly enough) has worked most of the time this year.

Breezer

rainbow kirby wrote: »

I use Adium - which (surprisingly enough) has worked most of the time this year.

It has?! I didn't even bother trying. Are you using the regular proxy settings?

rainbow kirby

Yup. I've changed the settings in System Preferences -> Network to use the proxy, not just changed the settings in Firefox.

Tbh - I was suprised myself when Adium fired up on the first day back.

I am using 10.4.11 on a late 2006 Macbook Pro btw.

MistressPandora

SirLemonhead wrote: »

It's WaveLan.

You'll need to enter the UCD proxy details into your system to get acess to the other sites.

I'm assuming you're on Windows so if you open the web browser, go to the Tools menu item, then 'Internet Options', then the 'Connections' tab, click the Lan Settings button and click the 'use proxy settings for your lan' checkbox

then enter http://proxy.ucd.ie and port 8484 in the bottom section of that window. Should do it.

Actually, in Internet Explorer and Firefox it's better if you just tick the "automatically detect proxy settings" option, you should only put in http://proxy.ucd.ie if that doesn't work.
In Macs, go to the proxy settings in Airport for the WaveLAN network, go to automatic configuration (at the bottom of the list) and type in http://proxy.ucd.ie/proxy.pac and that should work.
All else fails, bring it into an IT centre.

SirLemonhead

Nerd.:)

MistressPandora

SirLemonhead wrote: »

Nerd.:)

And damn proud of it!

SRFC90

MistressPandora wrote: »

Actually, in Internet Explorer and Firefox it's better if you just tick the "automatically detect proxy settings" option, you should only put in http://proxy.ucd.ie if that doesn't work.
In Macs, go to the proxy settings in Airport for the WaveLAN network, go to automatic configuration (at the bottom of the list) and type in http://proxy.ucd.ie/proxy.pac and that should work.
All else fails, bring it into an IT centre.

Those links ain't working for me!?

Stepherunie

They're not links - they're the scripts you put in to get you settings running. Should look like the link below.

SRFC90

Stepherunie wrote: »

They're not links - they're the scripts you put in to get you settings running. Should look like the link below.

Haha!! I actually initially thouht that, but then thought, no... they must be numbers or something and proceed to try them as links!!:pac:

Notorious

Sorry to drag up an old post, but I'm just curious if anyone has Pidgin working around campus? I can't get it going myself, but if Adium is working for youse guys surely there shouldn't be a problem with Pidgin.

Breezer

I didn't manage to get Adium working.

SRFC90

I've been having a few probs that I' hoping yee can help me out with. Yesterday I went into the library as was able to connect to wavLAN no probs. I went to a lecture, came back, sat in the very same seat (if that makes a difference) and couldn't connect. Whats the story with this?

And then today, after connceting no probs, after 5 or 10 mins, the internet symbol in the bottom right toolball lost the little globe (ya know the one between the 2 blue screens) and said Local access only (where it usually says local and internet) and despite my best efforts, couldn't get the internet working again:mad:

It's very frustrating, hope ya can help me!:)

bnt

There have been a few problems in the last few days, even affecting an Architecture lecture I was at on Tuesday: lecturer wanted to show us some Modernist Art video off YouTube. I saw problems today too, could not connect at all for an hour.

(Techie details: the problem I had today was not in the wireless signal, but in getting an IP address. I suspect the DHCP server was down or had run out of leases. The latter seems more likely to me, because when it did come back up, it was handing out addresses that expired after just 2 hours. That doesn't happen unless someone sets it up like that - a day or so is more normal. Too many laptops connecting, I guess.)

Raphael

I get that sometimes, I find that repairing, or if that fails rebooting, helps most of the time.

theboat

I've had the same problem with my laptop i.e. it doesn't always have the globe symbol, and I can only get local access. It happens to me about half the time I try to connect. I have to use the ucd proxy server (http://proxy.ucd.ie/proxy.pac) to get it to work at all.
Is yours Vista? I went to IT and they said Vista is inconsistent when connecting. There doesn't seem to be a definite solution. I think we can really only hope that Microsoft release upgrades of service packs that fix the problem.

bnt

theboat wrote: »

I've had the same problem with my laptop i.e. it doesn't always have the globe symbol, and I can only get local access. It happens to me about half the time I try to connect. I have to use the ucd proxy server (http://proxy.ucd.ie/proxy.pac) to get it to work at all.
Is yours Vista? I went to IT and they said Vista is inconsistent when connecting. There doesn't seem to be a definite solution. I think we can really only hope that Microsoft release upgrades of service packs that fix the problem.

Now, I'm not using Vista at the moment, so I might be wrong, but I thought Vista only considered itself connected to the Internet (the globe symbol) if it was able to connect to a particular Microsoft site. If so, it makes sense that you'd have to use the Proxy, because the request will not get through without it.

That "proxy.pac" address returns a list of rules that tell IE what proxy (if any) to use, depending on your IP address. In IE you can just leave that setting in, it can tell when you're not inside UCD, so that it won't try and use the proxy. (That's how it's supposed to work, anyway!)

SRFC90

People still having problems?

rigel4

Hey there,

I'm having the 'globe' problem too.

Today, despite having 'local access', I was still unable to access any UCD pages.

I was on the net in the arts block and it was working fine, even though I had a relatively low signal strength.

Decided to hit the library for some evening study but couldn't connect to anything. I had full signal strength. This problem arose during the exam period in December (and November!), but I put that down to too many people trying to gain access through the access points.

I brought the laptop to the lads in the daedalus building in December and they told me to try the proxy thing mentioned above. It makes no difference.

Extremely frustrating.

Any tips?

I'm on vista home pro. fully up to date. antivirus (avg) is up to date.

Grr.

thanks




edit:

sorry, I forgot to mention that I was able to gain access to the internet through my ipod touch whilst in the library. My mate was sitting beside me with his xp laptop and was using the net whilst i was trying to connect.

RichTea

Wireless has been giving me awful problems on campus over the past week or two. No problems before that but now it seems that it takes 30 mins of meddling to get it to work every time I try to connect.

bnt

I brought my (Linux) netbook to UCD last Monday: in about 10 attempts, the basic wireless connection worked fine every time, but I could only get an IP address once. This leads me to believe there's a problem with the server* that hands out IP addresses (DHCP). Just as there was last October (as above).

geek stuff:
The way it works is: the DHCP server hands out an address on a "lease" for a particular time e.g. 4 hours. At the end of that period, your PC has to apply to renew the lease, or it gets clawed back. However, if there aren't sufficient addresses for everyone, the administrator can be tempted to reduce the time, to claw back addresses more quickly. However, of you drop the lease time too far, the attached PCs send more renewal requests in a given time, and that can swamp the server.

Last October I could see that the lease time was two hours, which I would call "borderline". I'm not on campus right now, but you can check the lease time on Windows by running ipconfig /all (if you are connected), and looking at the "Lease Obtained" and "Lease Expires" times. The difference between them is the lease duration. If it's very short, well, they may be running out of IP addresses.

Red Alert

I think they should drop the need to configure proxies, especially with the increase in unusual devices like iPhones, netbooks etc and also with less geeky people buying laptops. It's outdated and there are better ways of doing it. Would probably reduce a lot of needless support requests.

patchmck

Yes apologies for this resurrection but does anyone know how to get adium running in ucd?? Been arsing around for ages with different proxy settings and it just won't connect

Frisbee

Do most people just sue WaveLAN in UCD?

I find eduroam much much better. It's faster, more connectivity and nothing is blocked on it.

bnt

At the moment, eduroam is only available in a few buildings at UCD, so it's no help if you spend your time in e.g. Engineering or Science blocks. According to their website, that is - if it's been expanded, I haven't noticed.

Red Alert

The support page for Eduroam looks great - they've covered all the bases for different OS'es which is good. Now if only it'd come to Engineering!

HxGH

SirLemonhead wrote: »

Nerd.:)

Aren't we all

Frisbee

bnt wrote: »

At the moment, eduroam is only available in a few buildings at UCD, so it's no help if you spend your time in e.g. Engineering or Science blocks. According to their website, that is - if it's been expanded, I haven't noticed.

THat's true I suppose, being a comp sci nerd I have access to it all the time, so I kinda take it for granted.


It's annoying though when loads are people are using it for downloading stuff (doesn't block torrents) as it slows down like a mofo.