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Grex Micros Item 208: U of M computer network for student dorms
Entered by keesan on Sat Jul 3 19:37:58 UTC 1999:

Please explain how the U of M dormitory computer network operates.  What sort
of computer does a student need.  Will a 386 do?  What size hard drive, how
much RAM, video RAM?  What operating system and software?  What kinds of
network cards are acceptable?  What exactly are networked computers used for?
Do you need a modem with them or just the network card?  Are they primarily
for internet access, or for accessing a mainframe computer for calculations?
Can you store your own data on the university computer?  The reason for asking
is that first, we have some network cards at Kiwanis, second, Davel has
offered some 396s that currently have network software on them (and maybe
network cards in them?), and we may be able to supply students with computers,
very cheap, depending on the hardware requirements.

14 responses total.

#1 of 14 by wlevak on Sun Jul 4 04:10:43 1999:

There are two ways to connect to the university network:
1. Dial up with a modem.  This is the  same as any other internet provider.
2. Direct connection to the campus network via a network card.

This last option requires a network card that can handle TCP/IP protocol of
a flavor that is compatible with Novel Netware.  The university supplies the
connection software as they have modified it slightly.  The 3COM ethernet
cards you have are adequate.  When connected to the university network, you
are on the internet, that is, you are a computer on the internet, not just
accessing it through a modem.  You can, in theory, do anything any other
internet computer can do.  In practice, you are not allowed to be a server.
You can do all the things you mentioned and others too.  The kind of computer
you need depends on what you want to do, however the university holds a
truckload sale every Fall, in which students can buy brand new computers at
a very good price.  They can also go to a public workstation and use a
computer that is more powerfull than anything you have to sell.

In short, you may be able to sell students cheap network cards, but they are
not likely to be interested in your computers.

#2 of 14 by scg on Sun Jul 4 05:55:36 1999:

If all they want to do is get on the Internet through the dorm network, they
need an ethernet card and a computer with a TCP/IP stack.  Windows 95 has
TCP/IP built in.  Windows 3.1 has a bunch of add-on packages.  Novel Netware
has nothing to do with that.  If they're trying to access file sharing
services I have no idea what the University is doing for that at this point.
Novel Netware may be needed, although again with Windows95, the Netware client
is included.

#3 of 14 by gull on Wed Jul 7 21:54:09 1999:

Win3.11 has a network stack available for it from Microsoft, free for the
downloading.  It only works with Ethernet cards, though, as it has no dialer
or PPP stack.

#4 of 14 by dang on Mon Jul 26 02:47:03 1999:

U of M uses AFS.  You would need an AFS client (available, I believe,
from the U of M ITD website) to access the file server.

#5 of 14 by keesan on Mon Jul 26 13:00:19 1999:

What is AFS?
So could we conceivably set up a 386 or 486 computer with an Ethernet card
and Win3.11 and the software needed to connect to U of M?  If so, could
someone explain in simple language how to do this (or better yet, come in and
demonstrate?)  We just got in a working 486-50MHz and have 3Com cards and
Win3.11 around somewhere (or can get it).

#6 of 14 by dang on Fri Jul 30 03:41:27 1999:

AFS is a secure (supposedly) network file system.  It's one of many
network file systems.  Microsoft uses something called SMB, Unix usually
uses NFS, AFS, or Coda, Netware has their own, etc.  AFS has some
advantages and some disadvantages.  Yes, you could theoretically connect
to U of M.  The only hitch is whether or not U of M still supports, and
has software for, Win 3.1. It looks, from their website, like U of M no
longer supports windows 3.1.  The only thing I could find about it is
that they have an old dial-up kit, and ethernet users are supposed to
"contact their system administrator."  Sorry.

#7 of 14 by gull on Fri Jul 30 04:10:11 1999:

SMB is actually an open standard, unusual for MS.  There's a freely
available package called Samba that allows UNIX and Linux machines to 'talk'
SMB.  I've tried it and it works quite well...my Win95 machine thought it
was talking to an NT server and was able to mount shared directories on the
Linux system as network disk drives.  There's printer support, too.

#8 of 14 by dang on Fri Jul 30 16:39:03 1999:

Samba is great stuff.  It means I only need one server to handle
routing, web serving, file serving, print serving, mail serving, and it
means that all this is available transparently no matter what OS I
happen to have booted on a given machine.  I highly recommend Samba for
anyone setting up a home network.

#9 of 14 by keesan on Sun Aug 1 00:00:35 1999:

Would a 486 running FreeBSD be suitable for hooking up to the U of M?

#10 of 14 by jshafer on Sun Aug 1 07:13:53 1999:

(Keesan, do you have a recent version of FreeBSD on CD?  If not drop me 
a line - I've got 3.1 which I no longer need since I also have 3.2)

#11 of 14 by dang on Tue Aug 3 21:55:48 1999:

Hooking up how?  Via ethernet, no.  There is no free AFS client that I
know of.  Rather, the free software of focusing on a new standard called
CODA that does pretty much what AFS does.  So, with FreeBSD, you have
the same problem that you have with Windows 3.1, namely that you need a
comercial client for AFS.  Now, either Win 3.1 or FreeBSD (or Linux, or
NetBSD, or...) will connect to the ethernet and give you internet
access, and telnet access, and whatnot.  But, not AFS.  If all you want
it dialup, FreeBSD would work great.

#12 of 14 by kentn on Tue Aug 3 22:28:17 1999:

See http://www.stacken.kth.se/projekt/arla/ for a project which is putting
together a free implementation of AFS for FreeBSD, and other systems.  Looks
to be fairly early in its development, and I haven't tried it.

#13 of 14 by darkskyz on Thu Aug 5 07:18:15 1999:

last time i checked, the linux kernel had built-in AFS support?

#14 of 14 by sarrica on Sun Sep 26 20:01:35 1999:

Complete information on the U-M network in the residence halls can be 
found on the ResComp website at http://rescomp.umich.edu/

The ResComp Networking Guide is available for reading online or printing 
in PDF format.  Minimum hardware and software requirements are included 
in this guide.  Your 386 would be allowed to connect to the network, but 
it would be unsupported.  ResComp requires a Pentium-class or PowerPC 
machine with Windows 95 or newer or MacOS 7.6.1 or newer to qualify for 
support.  A hard copy version of the Guide was distributed at summer 
orientation.

If you have any questions about the residence halls network you can e-
mail resnet@umich.edu

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