CIS Wireless Network Support

The School of Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) wireless network is an easy and convenient way to connect to the CIS network to transfer files, read mail, or use the Internet from your notebook's 802.11b wireless adapter . The CIS wireless network service area includes the Engineering and Computer Science building's (ECS) first floor classrooms, second floor labs and third floor main office, conference room and faculty offices. The School of Computing and Information Sciences wireless network is accessable to CIS specified students and staff. The following instructions will help you obtain CIS wireless service. Please read them carefully before purchasing a wireless adapter or contacting our staff for service.

The wireless network adapter costs $90 - $150 depending on the make/model and can be purchased from the campus computer store, local computer stores like CompUSA or from a variety of online vendors. We have optimized the CIS wireless network coverage using the Orinoco Silver 802.11b wireless PC-Card adapter. Unfortunately, we cannot garantee that your 802.11b adapter is compatable with our network. (If your card is true 802.11b, WiFi compliant, DSSS signalling, you should be ok.) We recommend you save your receipt in case you have to return the device. Also, CIS is not responsible to correct signal interference problems you may encounter while using the service.

If you are a student, please be aware that you are responsible for all software/hardware support on your personal computer. CIS is not responsible for any problems, including hardware/software conflicts, which may occur as a result of the installation of the wireless adapter. You can obtain assistance from the CIS Distributed Systems and Networking group in ECS 258 or by email at request@cis.fiu.edu during office hours 9-5pm, M-F if you are having problems logging in. If you are an employee and require wireless service on an FIU computer please contact us first so that we can assist your purchase/installation.

Before using the service, you must:

1. Be currently enrolled in an CIS class which requires the use of the JCCL undergraduate lab, the graduate lab, employed by the School or one of its research centers.
2. Agree to abide by the FIU and CIS network acceptable use policy.
3. Agree to the terms stated on this page.

To set up the CIS wireless network service on your computer:

Note that as of Summer 2003, this procedure has changed. We have updated our system to not require initial registration anymore. All users must now log into the network when they bring their laptop online. This is similar to the procedure used for our laptop bars.

1. Obtain an 802.11b wireless adapter. We have listed some popular cards below.
2. Configure your computer to use the CIS wireless network service:
   
   
   1. In Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2k, under TCP/IP Settings -> Properties for your wireless adapter. Make sure it is set to "Obtain an IP address automatically".
   2. You may need to enter in an ESSID in order to get access to our network. Our ESSID is 'fiu-scs'.
   3. With Linux, you want to make sure that you have a recent version of the PCMCIA-CS and that you are set to use DHCP. Check the Linux Wireless-HOWTO
   
   
3. Once you configure the wireless card, your machine should obtain an IP address. This address will be on a private network, and will start with "172.25". If your address starts with something else, you are not associated with the FIU-CIS wireless network.
4. Attempt to browse to any web page. You will probably receive a dialog box asking to confirm the validity of the sentry server's SSL certificate. Accept the certificate and you will get a login screen.
5. Log in with your CIS or JCCL UNIX username and password.
6. If you logged in correctly, you will be forwarded to the web page you tried to browse to and will now have network access.

You will remain authenticated as long as your laptop remains online with no break in connectivity longer than five minutes. In other words, if you simply reboot, and the reboot takes less than five minutes, you won't have to reauthenticate, but if you take your laptop with you to lunch, you will have to re-authenticate when you return.

Also note that you will not receive a public IP address. Your IP address will be behind a firewall doing NAT (Network Address Translation). This will allow you to use the vast majority of network services, but there may be some obscure network applications that won't function correctly. For instance, you will be unable to run servers on our wireless network.

Software that blocks PING packets should be disabled, as the Sentry system uses ping to determine if you are still alive. If you block pings, you will have to re-authenticate every five minutes.

Service Termination : If you are a student, your wireless access will be disabled if you are no longer authorized to use CIS labs. If you are an employee, your wireless access will end upon employment termination. Your access will also be terminated if you do not abide by the acceptable use policies noted above.

Below are some 802.11b cards we have used on the CIS wireless network:
Orinoco Silver PC Card
D-Link DWL-640
Xircom Credit Card Wireless Adpter (CWE1120, CWE1130)
3Com
Intel
Linksys
Apple Airport