As this change is being made at short notice and because Internet quotas impact everyone, separate emails summarising the changes to staff and students will be sent to toplist at lists and studentnews at lists respectively. This message (originally sent to ict-announce@lists) includes detail of both staff and student changes.
The important changes are as follows:
- It will no longer be necessary for staff or students to register laptops, tablets, phones and other devices on the eduroam wireless network.
- There is no limit to the number of wireless devices that staff or students may use, but we may limit the number you can use concurrently (at any one time).
- Wireless devices will only be subject to PER-USER Internet quotas; they will no longer be subject to per-host (device) quotas. The user is the person whose username/password are used to connect to the wireless network. You are reminded not to give your password to others.
- Per-user Internet quotas will be increased by about 220%, to match the existing per-host quotas. This applies to staff and students equally.
- Within a week or two, any device that a student registers on (and connects via a cable to) a wired network will also become subject to the same per-user Internet quota; per-host quotas will no longer apply to student devices, irrespective of whether they are in residences or departments.
Please be aware that the following do NOT change:
- If you go over the per-user quota, all devices that are subject to that quota will lose Internet access.
- University policy says that may not share your password with others, and doing so may result in their Internet use being counted to your per-user quota.
- It will still be necessary to register devices (such as desktop computers, printers, phones, etc) that connect via cable to a wired network. This will continue to apply to student wired devices, even after the change to per-user quotas.
- There is still a limit on the number of devices you may register on a wired network (default is 3 for staff, 2 for guests and postgrads in academic departments, and 1 for students in residence).
- Public lab and lecture venue computers will continue to be subject to per-user quotas.
- Staff devices connecting to a wired network will continue to be subject to per-host quotas for the time being.
- Per-host quotas remain unchanged.
This sort of change would normally only be undertaken during a major maintenance window. However, given the pressing problem with student wireless (see http://noticeboard.ru.ac.za/post.5532712), we've decided to implement the change as soon as possible. Work will commence at 10:00 this evening, and should be completed before midnight.