Ethernet connection

[Susan Alston]

I have a student who tries to connect to the internet from his dorm using a
Mac mini, using DHCP, airport is off, but can't get connected.  The cable is
good.  Other students and their Windows computers can use the connection
(and his Windows computer works also).  He can get online wirelessly with
the Mac but the signal is not very good so he wants to connect through the
dorm connection.  What can I try to figure this out?

--


Susan Alston
Internet Developer/Blackboard Administrator
Chowan University
252-398-6263
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[George Herndon]

hi, i have no insight into the specific network topology, but it's  
possible that the dhcp server is configured to only issue ips to known  
mac addresses (common in campus and corp environments).  if you assume  
the mac mini is newly installed, then it may need to be registered  
with the dhcp server.  presumably, the other windows machines are  
already known to the server and that's why they work.

my 2cents.  good luck.

george

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[Justin C. Walker]

On Aug 27, 2008, at 11:06 , Susan Alston wrote:

> I have a student who tries to connect to the internet from his dorm  
> using a
> Mac mini, using DHCP, airport is off, but can't get connected.  The  
> cable is
> good.  Other students and their Windows computers can use the  
> connection
> (and his Windows computer works also).  He can get online wirelessly  
> with
> the Mac but the signal is not very good so he wants to connect  
> through the
> dorm connection.  What can I try to figure this out?

A couple of thoughts:
  - One possibility is a bad on-board NIC; is this a new system?
    Has he used this system with the wired interface successfully
    anywhere else?

  - the connection doctor (from the Window menu in Mail); that
    will lead you through some diagnostic steps and may help
    nail down what is going wrong

  - if that doesn't work, my next steps would involve using
    Terminal.  In a terminal window, run 'ifconfig en0' (I assume
    that 'en0' is the built-in wired interface, and that is the
    one in use).  It should reply with a lot of chatter, of the
    following sort:

===============================
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet6 XXX%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
        inet 169.254.123.129 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 169.254.255.255
        ether XXX
        media: autoselect (100baseTX <half-duplex>) status: active
        supported media: autoselect 10baseT/UTP blah blah blah
===============================

    You are interested in the media and status (second-to-last line)
    if that doesn't show active, then you may have a bad connector
    or a bad cable.

  - Assuming all is well in the last step, the next one is to look at
    the traffic on the network.  Use 'tcpdump', something like this
      sudo tcpdump -i en0
    This should show some traffic, and the nature of that traffic may
    tell us what is going wrong.

>
>
> --
>
>
> Susan Alston
> Internet Developer/Blackboard Administrator
> Chowan University
> 252-398-6263
> _______________________________________________
> MacOSX-admin mailing list
> MacOSX-admin@...
> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-admin

--
Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-At-Large
Director
Institute for the Enhancement of the Director's Income
--------
"Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals.
  Well, except the weasel."
       - Homer J Simpson
--------


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[Brett Dikeman]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 2:06 PM, Susan Alston <alstos@...> wrote:
> I have a student who tries to connect to the internet from his dorm using a
> Mac mini, using DHCP, airport is off, but can't get connected.  The cable is
> good.  Other students and their Windows computers can use the connection
> (and his Windows computer works also).  He can get online wirelessly with
> the Mac but the signal is not very good so he wants to connect through the
> dorm connection.  What can I try to figure this out?

At what point in all of this have you involved your school's IT staff?
 Maybe the student's computer needs to be registered, or has been
blocked (for example, for using P2P software or excessive bandwidth.)

If it's not those, then plug it into a hub along with another system
running a packet sniffer like Wireshark (formerly Ethereal), available
as a package-based install.

Brett
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[Tim Roberts-4]

On Aug 27, 2008, at 1:59 PM, macosx-admin-request@... wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:06:59 -0400
> From: "Susan Alston" <alstos@...>
>
>
> I have a student who tries to connect to the internet from his dorm  
> using a
> Mac mini, using DHCP, airport is off, but can't get connected.  The  
> cable is
> good.  Other students and their Windows computers can use the  
> connection
> (and his Windows computer works also).  He can get online wirelessly  
> with
> the Mac but the signal is not very good so he wants to connect  
> through the
> dorm connection.  What can I try to figure this out?

The first thing to do is to look in  System Preferences under the  
Network Pane and
make sure that Ethernet is enabled. Then you need to check and see if  
it is configured to use DHCP.
You don't say which operating system, so there are slight differences  
between Tiger and Panther.
It should be pretty straight forward.


Best,


Tim Roberts
Waterknot Music
Nashville, TN
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[William H. Magill]

On Aug 27, 2008, at 2:06 PM, Susan Alston wrote:

> I have a student who tries to connect to the internet from his dorm  
> using a
> Mac mini, using DHCP, airport is off, but can't get connected.  The  
> cable is
> good.  Other students and their Windows computers can use the  
> connection
> (and his Windows computer works also).  He can get online wirelessly  
> with
> the Mac but the signal is not very good so he wants to connect  
> through the
> dorm connection.  What can I try to figure this out?
>
> --
> Susan Alston
> Internet Developer/Blackboard Administrator
> Chowan University
> 252-398-6263

Browsing Chowan's website, there is very little about computing  
"requirements."

However, based on the following document:

http://www.chowan.edu/documents/information-technology/ReturningStudentLetter.pdf

"Chowan has installed a NAC (Network Access Control) appliance to  
reduce unwanted traffic on
our network. This appliance will scan your PC’s to ensure you have the  
latest Microsoft updates,
antivirus definition files, and to ensure there is no P2P (Bearshare,  
Limewire) software running
on your machine. It is fine to have the software on the machine it  
just shouldn’t be active when
on our network."

I would assume that Apple computers are not supported on ethernet  
connections.

I don't know what NAC Appliance they are referring to, but if it is  
configured to scan a PC, it
definitely will fail when confronting a Mac. The wireless connection  
is obviously a "loophole"
in the Campus IT Security infrastructure. The NAC appliance scans the  
Wireless Access Point,
but  can't scan those things connecting to it.

Minimally, as someone pointed out,  the MAC address of the Mac Mini  
probably needs to be
registered to use the Ethernet connection.

You need to talk to one of your local Network Administrators to find  
out all the gory details.
They can probably (should be able to)  configure the specific port for  
the student's room
to allow the Mac Mini to connect.


T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
# Beige G3 [Rev A motherboard - 300 MHz 768 Meg] OS X 10.2.8
# Flat-panel iMac (2.1) [800MHz - Super Drive - 768 Meg] OS X 10.5.2
# iMac6,1 Core 2 Duo [2.16GHz - 3 GB 667] OS X 10.4.11
# Mac mini Core Duo [1.66 Ghz - 2 GB 667]OS X 10.5.2
# PWS433a [Alpha 21164 Rev 7.2 (EV56)- 64 Meg] Tru64 5.1a
# XP1000  [Alpha 21264-3 (EV6) - 256 meg] FreeBSD 5.3
# XP1000  [Alpha 21264-A (EV 6.7) - 384 meg] FreeBSD 5.3
magill@...
magill@...
whmagill@...



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[Perbix, Michael]

Sorry, should have replied all...

We are evaluating Cisco NAC and for Macs at the moment you need to have the MAC address registered.  All other ways to "scan" the host are not supported.  Supposedly there will be an updated NAC client for OSX, but not at the moment.

   -Mike
________________________________________
From: macosx-admin-bounces@... [macosx-admin-bounces@...] On Behalf Of William H. Magill [magill@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 6:49 PM
To: Susan Alston
Cc: macosx-admin@...
Subject: Re: Ethernet connection

On Aug 27, 2008, at 2:06 PM, Susan Alston wrote:

> I have a student who tries to connect to the internet from his dorm
> using a
> Mac mini, using DHCP, airport is off, but can't get connected.  The
> cable is
> good.  Other students and their Windows computers can use the
> connection
> (and his Windows computer works also).  He can get online wirelessly
> with
> the Mac but the signal is not very good so he wants to connect
> through the
> dorm connection.  What can I try to figure this out?
>
> --
> Susan Alston
> Internet Developer/Blackboard Administrator
> Chowan University
> 252-398-6263

Browsing Chowan's website, there is very little about computing
"requirements."

However, based on the following document:

http://www.chowan.edu/documents/information-technology/ReturningStudentLetter.pdf

"Chowan has installed a NAC (Network Access Control) appliance to
reduce unwanted traffic on
our network. This appliance will scan your PC’s to ensure you have the
latest Microsoft updates,
antivirus definition files, and to ensure there is no P2P (Bearshare,
Limewire) software running
on your machine. It is fine to have the software on the machine it
just shouldn’t be active when
on our network."

I would assume that Apple computers are not supported on ethernet
connections.

I don't know what NAC Appliance they are referring to, but if it is
configured to scan a PC, it
definitely will fail when confronting a Mac. The wireless connection
is obviously a "loophole"
in the Campus IT Security infrastructure. The NAC appliance scans the
Wireless Access Point,
but  can't scan those things connecting to it.

Minimally, as someone pointed out,  the MAC address of the Mac Mini
probably needs to be
registered to use the Ethernet connection.

You need to talk to one of your local Network Administrators to find
out all the gory details.
They can probably (should be able to)  configure the specific port for
the student's room
to allow the Mac Mini to connect.


T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
# Beige G3 [Rev A motherboard - 300 MHz 768 Meg] OS X 10.2.8
# Flat-panel iMac (2.1) [800MHz - Super Drive - 768 Meg] OS X 10.5.2
# iMac6,1 Core 2 Duo [2.16GHz - 3 GB 667] OS X 10.4.11
# Mac mini Core Duo [1.66 Ghz - 2 GB 667]OS X 10.5.2
# PWS433a [Alpha 21164 Rev 7.2 (EV56)- 64 Meg] Tru64 5.1a
# XP1000  [Alpha 21264-3 (EV6) - 256 meg] FreeBSD 5.3
# XP1000  [Alpha 21264-A (EV 6.7) - 384 meg] FreeBSD 5.3
magill@...
magill@...
whmagill@...



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