Help with Time capsule as router please

[RustyUK]

I am off to university in September, and was planning on getting and using a Time Capsule to make my printer wireless, and for wireless backups. Also- the internet connection in the halls is wired through an ethernet cable- so I was planning on plugging the cable into the TC and having wireless internet.

I decided to email the uni to check if this would be allowed- and he brought up some interesting points. Below is part of the email

"Our halls network uses 802.1x authentication for all devices connected to
it. In addition to this, the MAC address of each device you wish to
connect must also be registered with us. Although 802.1x is listed as an
authentication method on the product description page of the time capsule
it looks to me like it is only supporting it for its own authentication.
This would mean that it does not support 802.1x to authenticate itself
against another network.

The Time Capsule will need to support 802.1x authentication on the
ethernet WAN to be able to connect to our network before it can access the
internet. I have never come accross a home router that can do this before.
If the Time Capsule does support this then it may work.

Also, the time capsule will need to behave like a router and not like a
hub or a switch. This is because each device that connects directly to our
network needs to authenticate itself using 802.1x and only one
authenticated device is supported at a time."

Could someone please let me know if the TC would work as a router- as I dont want to buy it to find out if it will work.

Thanks for any responses!

 

[rayward]

Could someone please let me know if the TC would work as a router- as I dont want to buy it to find out if it will work.

The Time Capsule is a router. It's essentially an Airport Extreme Base Station with a built-in HDD for backups. I'm no expert, but if you're connecting it to the university's network, then you may need to set it up in bridge mode, so it's expanding the uni's network, both wirelessly and via the 3 ethernet ports, into your room.

Setting the thing up is relatively intuitive, and everything's password protected so you shouldn't be bothered by hackers.

 

[AppleNewton]

I dont see why you cant just plug it in and connect to it wirelessly.
Similar to how you would just plug a computer into their ethernet or plug the time capsule into a cable modem.

Like said before youd have to set it up in bridge mode essentially.
and its fairly easy set up process.

It will ask you when you first set up the device that if you want to connect to an existing network via ethernet or wireless and then if you would like to extend this network, etc etc

you should be good to go after that