About HallNet
HallNet is a service provided by Computer Services to give students and staff living in Halls of Residence fast and convenient access to the Internet from their rooms.
A current valid staff or student number and password are required, so new students need to have fully enrolled before they can use the service, and leaving students have a period of several weeks usage before their student number expires. Please note that once your student number has expired, or you are between courses, and your number is no longer valid, you will not have access to HallNet.
Practically all halls are now networked, with each networked room fitted with an RJ45 network port with a maximum of 8 Mbit/s feed to the Internet and Brookes Intranet. Access to home directories and course materials is possible via FTP, but not to printing or other resources on the Computer Services network.
Speed
Most halls have a 100 Mbit/s feed, which is shared between the rooms with a maximum of 8 Mbit/s to any one room. The operative word here is shared. This speed is under constant review and may be adjusted accordingly to provide a fair service to all users.
Unlike broadband using HallNet does not give you a licence to use the maximum available bandwidth for as long as you like. Activities such as mass-downloading of large files, continuous video streaming and so on can seriously degrade the performance of HallNet for others in your hall.
Typical academic usage of the Internet such as browsing the Web, emailing and instant messaging normally have very little impact on the system.
Usage
HallNet, by being part of the Brookes network, is therefore part of JANET, the UK's education and research network. There are rules to being allowed to use this network. Possibly the most important of these, found in the Brookes IT Regulations, is:
18. You must use the IT facilities only for academic, research and administrative purposes together with limited personal use. Such personal use is allowed as a privilege not a right, must conform to these guidelines, and should not incur unreasonable costs or have an adverse impact on resources or services.
People who break the rules will have their access to HallNet temporarily withdrawn. If they break the rules persistently, access may be completely withdrawn.
Reliability
The main threats to the reliability of HallNet have proved to be virus/worm outbreaks and abuse of the system - usually people running peer-to-peer file-sharing programs.
To help deal with these problems we employ systems to monitor all traffic through HallNet. Some systems are set to automatically restrict access, if, for example, a computer is seen to be actively trying to spread a worm. Others produce reports of high or unusual traffic for later analysis by the HallNet team, who may then restrict access for users causing problems.
Security risk
The Internet has become particularly dangerous over the last few years with a tsunami of worms, viruses and spyware ready to overwhelm unprotected computers. And unfortunately, most computers that are brought to Brookes are unprotected when they arrive, especially those running Microsoft software.
The good news is that it's not hard to improve the security of your computer - the important thing is to do it before connecting to HallNet.
To this end the HallNet Mini Guide is essential reading and you can pick it up from your hall reception. If they've run out, you can go to one of the Brookes pooled computer rooms and print a copy from the Setup section, which also provides more detailed information on security issues.