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Maryville College Network
Residence Hall Network
Policies
We often receive calls from students
asking about the college firewall, internet gaming, bandwidth and other network related
issues. This page is intended to answer some of those questions and to
divulge correct information about the MC network.
Q: What is bandwidth?
A: Bandwidth is a measurement of the network "speed"
available on a network to its users. For example, the students at
Maryville College have 2 T1 internet lines available to them in the residence
halls, or about 3.2MB of bandwidth. Bandwidth is a finite resource, and as
such must be controlled to ensure that all users have a positive network
experience while connected to the MC network.
Q: How does Maryville College Control its bandwidth?
A The purpose of the Maryville College student network is to enhance
the academic pursuits of students and to provide an avenue by which they can
further their studies. Since most students use traditional HTTP(port 80)
web browsing in their academic studies, the MC student network is geared towards
providing maximum bandwidth for that traffic. Thus, student users may find
that while their web browser pulls up web pages very fast, other web based
programs, such as P2P, games, IM's, etc. may not run as fast as they should
like.
Q: What is a firewall, and what does it do on a
network?
A: Basically put, a firewall is either software or
hardware, that protects the resources of a private network from outside
users. A network is inherently full of holes(ports), and a firewall does
the job of filling in the unwanted ones. For more information check: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firewall.htm
Q: Is the MC network behind a firewall?
A: Yes, of course. The college is
federally mandated through laws such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley
act to protect the network. The college is considered a financial
institution due to the Business Office and Financial Aid department, thus falls
under the provisions of acts which mandate financial IT security.
Q: What sort of things does the firewall protect the network against?
A: A firewall, when setup properly, can help to protect a
network against viruses, spyware, denial of service attacks, hackers and many
other forms of malicious code. However, the best network protection is a
responsible user base who keep their anti-viruses and Windows operating systems
up-to-date. A firewall, combined with vigilant users, can help keep a
network running smoothly, and trouble free. The firewall also protects the
college, by keeping virus traffic in-house, not allowing virus-infected student
computers to spread to other users on the internet. This is important, for
if the college network is seen as a virus host, the college can face fines, as
well as loss of internet service.
Q: Are there any drawbacks to to using a firewall?
A: Yes. Unfortunately when a firewall blocks certain ports
to protect against viruses, etc., it may also block non-malicious traffic such
as internet gaming, messengers, etc.
Q: How do you determine which ports to open?
A: Ports for traditional web traffic (HTTP, POP3, FTP) etc. are
opened by default. Other ports have been opened for services such as AOL,
ICQ and MSN Messenger. There are certain services and games, however that
require too many ports to be opened to be functional behind a firewall.
Q: What services, games, etc. are currently allowed through the firewall?
A: The following services, games, etc. which do not use a
traditional HTTP port (Port 80) have had ports opened on the firewall for their
usage:
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AIM and AIM file transferring
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Battlenet- Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo
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FTP, SFTP
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MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ
Messenger, AIM
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Sony Playstation2
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XBOX Live
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Everquest
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Final Fantasy XI
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Ultima Online
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Half-Life
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Horizons
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Unreal Tournament
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Battlefield 1942
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World of Warcraft
The Maryville College Information
Technology department makes no guarantees on the availability and reliability of
the above services on our network. While the services are allowed, highest
bandwidth priority is given to traditional website(HTTP Port 80) traffic, thus
they may not work satisfactorily during peak network usage hours.
The following services, games etc. do not
have ports opened for their use:
The above programs which have not been configured to work on
the MC network typically require too many, or in some cases all of the ports on
a firewall to be open in order to function.
Q: Who should I call to request a port be opened?
A: Contact the IT department at extension 8083 or
iss@maryvillecollege.edu. Please include in your voicemail or e-mail the name of the service or game you
want to access and what ports need to be opened. The Ports should be
listed as either UDP or TCP. We also need the IP Address of the server you
will be connecting to.
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