Computing From Home
How to Access Rowan Network Resources When you Are Not On Campus.
Marc Fleischner
“There is no reason for any individual to
have a computer in his home.”
Ken Olsen, President, Digital Equipment, 1977
Dial Up vs. Broadband – Dial Up
What Is Dial Up?
“of or pertaining to a terminal that links to a computer by dialing a telephone number. “
Dial Up vs. Broadband – Dial Up
You Use Modem to connect to a “Dial Up”
service, such as NetZero, Earthlink and America On Line (AOL)
Speed is limited to 56 kilobits per second,
which is very slow by today’s standards.
Is more portable than Broadband.
Costs much less than Broadband. (Net Zero
cost $9.95/month for basic service.)
Dial Up is good for Web Mail and light surfing
Dial Up vs. Broadband - Broadband
What is Broadband?
“In communications technology, the ability to send many signals over a single cable or other such communication medium.
Broadband technology allows enormous amounts of data, such as that for movie videos, to be transferred over limited
information infrastructure.”
Dial Up vs. Broadband - Broadband
Simply put, Broadband is a “high speed” internet connection
Cable Modem
Cable Modem is available from Cable
Television Companies.
Cable Modem is generally faster than DSL.
Cable bandwidth is shared among a neighborhood
while DSL is a dedicated connection.
Cable Modem is usually more expensive than
DSL.
DSL or Digital Subscriber Line
DSL is available from Telephone companies. Is available is various speeds, all generally
slower than Cable.
Uses your existing telephone wires.
Requires use of a “DSL Filter” on the other
phone lines in your home.
DSL or Cable? Which to Choose
Both services are not necessarily available in
your neighborhood.
What are you going to do with it?
Both service types will let you access Rowan
Sharing Computers in Your Home
Sharing a High Speed Internet connection requires the use of a router.
You can also purchase a router that contains a wireless access point to create a wireless network.
I recommend a Linksys brand router/access point, such as the Linksys 802.11g Wireless Router, Model:
WRT54G (approximately $70).
We will discuss securing your wireless router later in the
Rowan Resources
Your E-mail The VPN
Rowan Webmail
Rowan Webmail can be accessed anywhere
you have an internet connection.
To access webmail, on a pc, open Internet
Explorer and type http://outlook.rowan.edu in the address bar.
This is the one application that we
recommend using Internet Explorer for!!!
Rowan Webmail
Once you are on the Outlook Web Access
Page, click the “Click Here to Access Your Webmail” link located in the middle of the page.
A window will open asking for your username
and password. Enter your Network Username and Password
Outlook will open giving you access to your
VPN
VPN stands for Virtual Private Networking. A virtual private network (VPN) is a private
communications network often used within a company, or by several companies or
VPN
You must use the VPN to access Rowan
Resources such as the Openarea and Home Directories (H Drive).
You can download the VPN from
http://www.rowan.edu/download/vpn (Both
VPN
The Main VPN Screen - PC
VPN
The VPN is Connected (PC)
The VPN is Connected
Home Directory and Open Areas
To connect to the Home Directories (H Drives)
and Open Areas Rowan uses Native File Access, or NFA.
NFA uses the operating system’s built in
method for accessing network drives.
A full explanation of NFA, including directions,
NFA
The first step to accessing remote drives is to
know where you are going.
To find your Home Directory, go to
MyHome Information
Important: In order to connect to your files from your home computer you MUST be
connected to the University using the VPN client. For instructions on downloading and installing the VPN client, and connecting to your Home Directory and Openarea please visit: Technology Toolbox: Accessing your Files from Off-Campus
Your full user Context:.fleischner.NSS.IR.Rowan Your Home Server:nwuser7.rowan.edu
Home Volume:HOME7
Home Path:\\Employees\fleischner
Connect to your home directory (Safari on Mac Only):
afp://nwuser7.rowan.edu/HOME7/Employees/fleischner
Connect to your home directory (PC Only; Internet Explorer):
\\nwuser7.rowan.edu\HOME7\Employees\fleischner\
FTP Link:ftp://[email protected]
Openarea FTP Link:ftp://[email protected]/
Connect to the Openarea (PC Only; Internet Explorer):
\\neptune.rowan.edu\common\openarea
Connect to the Openarea (Safari on Mac
Connecting to Home and Open Areas
On a PC, Click Start
-> Run.
In the “Open” box,
enter the Location of your Home Directory.
\\nwuser7.rowan.edu\
On a Mac, Click Go
-> Connect to Server
In the “Server Address” box, enter the Location of your Home Directory
Connecting to Home and Open Areas
Once you click OK (Connect on a Mac), you
will be prompted for your Rowan Network Username and Password.
On a Mac, you will get a Volumes window.
Select your volume (in my case, home7).
On both a PC and Mac, a folder window will
Connecting to Home and Open Areas
To connect to the Open Area, follow the
previous steps, then enter
\\neptune.rowan.edu or neptune.rowan.edu.
Double-click on the COMMON folder, then
double click on the openarea folder.
Creating Shortcuts
Why repeat this process every time when we
can easily create a short cut to our folder?
To create a shortcut (PC), repeat the
following process, but stop open folders one level before your files. (For the Home Drive, this will be the “Employees” folder).
Right click on the folder and click “Create
Creating Shortcuts
On a Mac, open to the same folder, and then,
Map Your Locations! (PC Only)
If you use these locations repeatedly, you
can easily assign them a Drive Letter, such as C. (C is reserved to always be your
primary hard drive.)
From the open network drive window, click
Tools -> Map Network Drive on the window.
Enter the address of your network drive and
assign it a letter like H or O.
Securing Your Wireless
It is VERY IMPORTANT that you secure your
home wireless.
Each model works a little differently, but
works on the same premise.
For today’s example, we will be using a
Linksys router.
Start by accessing your router’s configuration
Securing Your Wireless
Linksys generally uses 192.168.1.1.
Netgear, another leading manufacturer, also
uses this address.
Enter the address into your browsers address
bar and hit enter. On the Linksys, you will be prompted for a password. The default
Securing Your Wireless Step 1
Change the Password!
Click on the “Administration” tab.
In the “Router Password” field, enter a new
password.
Securing Your Wireless Step 2
Name Your Network!
Each wireless network has a unique name. On campus, we user RowanOpen or
RowanWPA.
Linksys and Netgear use their company
names as default.
This is the first thing a hacker will use to find
Securing Your Wireless Step 2
Name Your Network!
Start securing your network by changing its
name!
The name of the Wireless Network is called
the SSID.
To change the name, click on the wireless
tab, then click in the Wireless Network Name (SSID) field.
Enter a new name, and then click “Save
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
Limit Machine Access!
Next, we are going to limit who can access
your network.
This is a very simple and easy type of
security, but it does NOT encrypt your data!
To limit access, we are going to set a
“Wireless MAC Filter.”
To start we need the MAC address of the
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
What is a MAC Address?
“A Media Access Control address (MAC
address) is a unique identifier attached to
most network adapters (NICs). It is a number that acts like a name for a particular network adapter.”
The MAC address is made up of a series of
hexadecimal numbers such as the following:
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
Find Your Mac Address(PC)
On a PC, click Start – Run. In the “Open” box, type CMD and then click OK. At the prompt, type “ipconfig /all” and hit enter. You will get a listing of the machine’s network
adapters, along with any active IP address and the adapters Physical Address.
Write down the physical address of any
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
Find Your Mac Address(Mac)
On a Mac, Click Apple – System Preferences
on the Finder menu to open the System Preference Window. Click on Network.
In the “Show” dialogue, click “Airport”
The machine’s Mac address will be displayed
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
Limit Machine Access!
Start with plugging your machine into your
router via an Ethernet cable.
Open your web browser and return to the
router configuration screen. Remember, you’ve changed your password!
Click on the Wireless tab, and then click on
the Wireless MAC filter sub-tab.
Click “Enable” next to the Wireless MAC filter
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
Limit Machine Access!
Click “Permit Only PC’s listed to access the
wireless network.
Click “Save Settings.”
At this point, no computers can connect to
your network. You need to add them to the MAC filter list.
Securing Your Wireless Step 3
Limit Machine Access!
In the followingfields, enter the Mac Address of
each computer that will be accessing your network.
When you are
Securing Your Wireless Step 4
Hide in Plain Sight!
Before finishing, you should start and connect
every computer you will be using on the
wireless network. This will ensure that these machines know what network to connect to.
After each machine is connected, return to
the router configuration screen.
Click on the Wireless tab to return to the
Securing Your Wireless Step 4
Hide in Plain Sight!
On the “Basic Wireless Settings” screen,
select “Disable” next to the “Wireless SSID Broadcast” item.
This will keep the access point from
broadcasting the name of your network, hiding it from network sniffing devices.
Advanced Security
In addition to the above methods, you can
use other advanced methods such as:
Pre Shared Key - A pre-shared key or PSK is a
secret which was previously shared between the
two parties using some secure channel before it needs to be used.
WEP – Uses a standard 40-bit key to encode
Final Comments
Finally, the best thing you can do is to
practice safe computing techniques.
