warning: my two cents ..
I am not sure if there is a magical way to have a laptop just configure
itself the way a given user wants it at that moment in time and will
work on campus, in their home, and at Starbucks, or anywhere else they
decide to use it. If you take steps to make it work here on campus they
will want you to make it work everywhere, at some point the users need
to be able to use the machine. That said there are a few tools out
there that allow you to set up multiple configurations for the network
and you can then select between them with a click on the taskbar. I
have not used any of them myself with any success so I won't name any
specifically, but also never spent more than 5 minutes on this either
before I decided to just deal with fixing it myself every time.
Also I must say that I fear the thought of vendors that don't want to
use our wireless because it is not secure. Any application that they
are using to store, fetch, gather, or send that sensitive data should
already have some kind of security, such as SSL to a website, which
would make using our wireless just the same as using our wired connections.
Scott Smith wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out a way to let our pool of laptops be mobile on
> campus without having to register each one individually with the DHCP
> server.
>
> Our laptops get used in a variety of ways, from folks needing to take
> work home to running our information desks at Benefits events for Open
> Enrollment periods, to giving retirement vendor presentations here in
> the Nisbet Building.
>
> Our users complain that it is difficult or impossible to get
> connectivity over the wired MSU Campus network, which usually means
> they don't know how to deal with DHCP (or don't want to). We do have
> wireless here, but some of the vendors don't want to use it because it
> isn't secure, and they are dealing with employees personal information
> during their meetings.
>
> We have tried to use XP's alternate configuration, but because it
> detects a DHCP server when plugged into the wired network, it will
> never switch over to the static IP configuration.
>
> What I'm trying to avoid is having to reconfigure TCP/IP on every
> laptop for the needs of the user that is checking it out.
--
--
Jeff Utter
Network Security
Michigan State University
Academic Computing and Network Services
301 Computer Center
[log in to unmask]
517.432.7304
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