School network problems (firewall?)

this just doesn't make any sense if you can be on the internet looking at web pages but not be able to check mail or sign on to iChat or the likes

the only way that this could be a firewall is if those things are blocked for everyone, even those not on wireless.

double post by accident during some heavy traffic on macrumors...

Re: School network problems (firewall?)

Originally posted by shakespeare
Other things - Sherlock, Mail, Watson, iChat - just don't make it through. I assume this is due to some kind of firewall.

Is there any way I can reconfigure my network settings so that I can use Mail at school the way I do at home?

Click to expand...

If the school has a firewall setup so certain activity is not allowed, then you're out of luck. Have you taken this to the IT department of the school in question?

i can't see how you can't use mail

they wouldn't block pop and smtp...can anyone else use a mail program? like outlook on pcs?

It is very simple, the firewall will only allow certain tcpip ports. (i.e. port 80 for browsing) Sherlock, iChat, Watson, all use different ports. There is no way that I know around this. (Well except web mail for e-mail.)

The printing is most likely done locally, so the firewall doesn't come into play....

(Also the case for the e-mail servers. In other words, you have to use the local e-mail servers to send and recieve, but they block port 110 (pop e-mail) to the network users so that you cannot download mail from another mail server.)

Your problem is that they are not running an open dhcp server. Check out the address that you are getting, it is probably a 169. address. Rendezvous is link-local, it only works on the subnet, it does not let you talk to any machines not directly connected (via wired or wireless) to you.

I would guess that you need to register your MAC address (ethernet hardware address) with the IT staff.

If you are trying to do this illegally, too bad, you won't be able to make it work. (not that it is impossible, but you would really need to know what you were doing).

If you are allowed on the network, you will need to work with the system.

Here is a quick verification

Last login: Mon May 5 20:51:13 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!

In a terminal window type:
ifconfig en1

look for the line that says inet, that is your IP address, looking below, mine is 10.0.1.2

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet6 fe80::230:65ff:fe04:7b08%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
inet 10.0.1.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.1.255
ether 00:30:65:04:7b:08
media: autoselect status: active
supported media: autoselect

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Now check the routing tables:
netstat -rn
look for the line beginning with default

Routing tables

Internet:
Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
default 10.0.1.1 UGSc 33 17 en1
10.0.1/24 link#5 UCS 1 0 en1
10.0.1.1 0:3:93:21:b0:81 UHLW 33 42245 en1 936
10.0.1.2 127.0.0.1 UHS 0 1 lo0
127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 9 125234 lo0
169.254 link#5 UCS 0 0 en1
<snip>

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If you address begins with 169, your screwed, if not try to see if you can talk to the router:
ping 10.0.1.1

PING 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=20.805 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.39 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=3.223 ms
^C
--- 10.0.1.1 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 2.39/8.806/20.805 ms

Click to expand...