Welcome to the Departments of Computer Science and Information Systems at Rhodes University. This document contains some useful background information for the users of the Hamilton Building network and the ICT domain.

Who	What	Where
Billy Morgan	Manager:ICT	8657
Chris Morley	Senior ICT Specialist	8624
Karl Van der Schyff	Senior ICT Specialist	8649
Jill Japp	ICT Specialist	8648

The Technical Staff are here to keep the systems running and to provide technical support to all users of the Hamilton Building infrastructure. If you have any problems or queries, please feel free to contact us, either by logging a support ticket or phoning us.

The Hamilton Building production network is powered by two edge stacks of Dell PowerConnect 6200 series switches, which are aggregated on a 10Gbps backbone to a Dell PowerConnect 6200 series core switch, which in turn provides redundant gigabit uplinks to the University network core.

A Krone Trunet structured cabling plant provides cabled access to the switching infrastructure.

IP connectivity is provided by the Rhodes University IT Division; the Hamilton Building network is allocated the 146.231.120.0/21 subnet of the Rhodes University IP block. As such, the default gateway and network mask in use on the network should be:

Subnet mask:

255.255.248.0 in classfull format, or /21 in CIDR format.

Gateway IP:

146.231.120.1

IP numbers are reserved and allocated via preconfigured DHCP services provided by the IT Division. If you need to register a machine for use on the Rhodes University Network, you need to connect it to the network, wired or wireless, and try browsing to any webpage. You should be re-directed to a captive portal which will guide you through the process of registering your device into the production network IP space. If you have any issues or difficulties, please submit a support ticket or contact the Hamilton Technical Section directly for further assistance.

Do not attempt to use fixed, or static, IP addresses on the Hamilton Building network. IP addresses may change without warning, and fixed IP addresses may cause various problems which will result in offending devices being summarily removed from the network. The IT Division will not process any direct requests for machine registrations in Hamilton subnets that cannot be done through the automated system, and will redirect all such requests to the Hamilton Technical Section.

Internet connectivity is provided by the Rhodes University IT Division systems. There is a caching mechanism in place for web browsers. The proxy service is located at:

http://wwwproxy.ru.ac.za:3128/

In most cases, these details are dynamically configured via DHCP and DNS mechanisms. However, in cases where this is not automatically configured, the next preferred method is to direct your browser at the proxy autoconfiguration script located at

http://wpad.ru.ac.za/

This is preferable as the IT Division may change proxy service configurations from time to time and have a number of other locally hosted domains and IP ranges correctly configured in their script allowing correct use of the proxy services.

There are restrictions placed on the use of the IT facilities at Rhodes University. Details of these can be found on the IT Division web site at:
http://www.ru.ac.za/informationtechnology/itdivision/policiesandprocedures/internetrestrictions

Additional information about system quotas can be found at:
http://www.ru.ac.za/informationtechnology/itdivision/policiesandprocedures/internetquotasystem

All use of both the Rhodes University and Hamilton Building networks is subject to the Rhodes University Acceptable Use Policy; you are encouraged to read this at:
http://www.ru.ac.za/static/policies/rhodes-aup.html

The Hamilton Building network is based on a Windows 2008 domain, the ict.ru.ac.za domain. There are three domain controllers, dc1.ict.ru.ac.za, dc2.ict.ru.ac.za and dc3.ict.ru.ac.za. These systems are where users are authenticated to use internal network resources, such as file sharing and printing.

For users on the domain there are certain file resources available. These are usually accessed via the DFS repository. The UNC path for this is:

\\ict.ru.ac.za\dfs

From here, you can browse the sections of the DFS root for which you are authorized.

The \\ict.ru.ac.za\dfs\public share contains useful utilities, patches, shareware and system tools.

The \\ict.ru.ac.za\dfs\msdnaa contains application software, development environments, servers and operating systems that are licensed to students and staff of the Computer Science and Information Systems Departments through the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance program. You are entitled to use this software if you are affiliated with either of the departments. Speak to the Hamilton Technical Section staff if you have any queries.

There is one print server in the building which supports all users. You can access printers with your domain login account. To add a printer, either Find Printers in the Active Directory (an option when you add a printer from Windows 2000 / XP) or browse to the server, \\print.ict.ru.ac.za

Certain users are charged for printing (undergraduate and honours students); please see the handbook for information about how to credit your account.

The colour laser printer is available to all users in the Hamilton Building as a prepaid service. The printer is physically situated behind the reception area, so physical after-hours access is not possible. Please arrange to pick up printouts with a member of the secretariat during office hours.