file server on school network

[JinieJ]

Hi-

I live on a school campus. We have a school wide network that is wireless, but there are also ethernet ports in the dorm room that connect to this network. The wireless is pretty slow but I found that when you connect an airport to the ethernet in the dorm room and host a small network it is much faster. What I was originally doing was having my macbook share the connection from the ethernet over airport. When I was doing that I was able to set my file sharing preferences to on and I could access hard drives connected to the host macbook from both the schools network while out of the dorm and from my own network when in the dorm.

Now, I have a wireless router connected to the ethernet port in my room because it is much much faster and the ports etc etc, however, any computer connected to the network in my dorm that has file sharing set to on is only accessible while on the small network in my dorm and not from the school wide network. It seems that the router has to be connected to the hard drive because the school network cannot see IP addresses within my small network and thus cannot connect to the hard drive....

How do I rectify this issue?

I want to be able to connect a hard drive to my roommates iMac that is connected to our small wireless router in my dorm while on the school wide network. (This wireless router gets its connection from the schools internet / its large school wide network. )
Help!

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I aint no newbie -_-

 

[mcnallym]

Just so I am making sure I understand properly.

1.) Macbook connected to School Ethernet Network, and sharing this connection over your local dorm network via the Wireless on the Macbook. You could access the Hard Drive from the School Network and your Dorm Network.

2.) Disconnected the Macbook from School Network and is now connected to just your Dorm Network. A wireless router is connected to the School Network. To be able to access the Hard Disk on the Macbook then can only be done from the Dorm Network.

Why it is not working.

Your Wireless Router will be NATting the IP of your Dorm Network behind the single IP address that the School Network provides, whereas before that IP was the IP on the Macbook. As such the School see's all of your Dorm as the single IP on the Wireless Router. It won't know about any machines behind the Wireless Router, so won't be able to connect to the Machine. When the Macbook was connected to the School Network, then the Macbook was visible to the School Network.

How to make it work.

1.) Have the School see the network by turning off NAT on the Wireless Router and have the School route the IP of your Dorm Network via the Wireless Box. I don't see the network admin agreeing to this.

2.) What I would suggest do is create an account on the iMac and connect your iCloud details into it.

This is how I work with providing support to my Parents iMac. I have an account on there iMac and I see there iMac in the Finder in my Mac's at home, and simply connect to there iMac with BacktoMac.

This does depend however on the School Network working with iCloud and BacktoMac properly, which is may or may not do.

3.) Alternatively port redirect the necessary ports for file sharing on the wireless router to the iMac. You will then need to identify the School Network IP on the router and connect to the IP manually, rather then seeing in Finder. This will allow you to connect to the iMac, and the iMac will need a static IP address. You won't connect to your Macbook from the School Network, just the iMac.

4.) Depending upon how the School Network Works then you may be able to plug the Wireless Box in via the LAN port rather then the WAN port. In that case then the Wifi and LAN will be on the School Network, however the School Network will see all of your IP and MAC Addresses. I don't know if your School has a policy of 1 Ethernet Port, 1 Machine in which case this wouldn't work, however I believe that many schools, colleges do.

 

[JinieJ]

Cool. Think I get it. The network admins have messed with me and this setup before so I'll just do the back to my mac / iCloud route, good idea.

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Thanks!

 

[tampasteve]

Or, depending on the content and amount, perhaps a service like Dropbox or Box would be appropriate.

 

[Altemose]

Cool. Think I get it. The network admins have messed with me and this setup before so I'll just do the back to my mac / iCloud route, good idea.

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Thanks!

If you use an AirPort then simply set it to "Bridge Mode" and it will fully act as its own AP. This will still allow network access to the college resources, but also create a separate network.