Installing routers in university dormitories is a pitfall for campus network authentication and power outage and WiFi throughout the building.

In September, I sent my niece to the provincial capital to go to school, and a router was stuffed in the suitcase. My sister had repeatedly warned me that I would be responsible for the dormitory network. Only when I started pretending did I realize that the stall in the dormitory and at home are completely different things.: For home broadband, you only need to fill in the account and password. The school network must first pass the "authentication" level. There are three authentication methods. If you don't understand this before buying a router, your money may be wasted.

I wrote down the pitfalls I have stepped on and the pitfalls I almost stepped on in order. If there are children at home who will go to college this year, I will pass them on to them for review.

Make it clear first: How the school is certified is more important than what router to buy.

Don’t rush to unpack the router on the day of registration. Do one thing first: Ask the seniors in the freshmen group, or call the school network center directly to find out which authentication method the campus network uses. There are three common types of campus networks in universities across the country.

The first is web authentication , and the most common. Plug in the network cable, open a web page in the browser, and a login page will pop up automatically. Just enter your student ID and password. This is the most router-friendly and can be used with any router on the market.

The second is client authentication . The school issues a certification client (Ruijie, Dr.COM These names) must be installed on a Windows computer and the client must be opened to access the Internet. This is the most troublesome, and it cannot be installed in ordinary home routers.

The third method is to log in directly with your mobile phone number . Some schools' campus networks use mobile phone numbers as accounts. You can connect to the campus WiFi to open a page and enter the mobile phone verification code, eliminating the need for network cables.

My niece's school is the first type. Some seniors in the freshmen group had already sent a document, clearly stating that "dormitories are allowed to install their own routers, and one account has unlimited traffic per month." The price is 25 yuan a month, and the 100 MB option was selected. Sharing one account in a four-person room costs more than six yuan per person, which is cheaper than getting broadband at home. Schools vary greatly. Some schools limit the number of devices that can be online at the same time under one account, and some schools do not allow routers to be installed at all. These must be clarified in advance. Don’t wait until you buy a router.

Web-certified schools in three steps

I bought her a router in advance, a 129 AX3000T, the same model as the one at home. The one I've had for two years , you can set it with your eyes closed. The dormitory is a four-person room with a bed and a table. There is a network port under each table, which is enough - once the router is placed on the table, the whole room is full.

The first step is to plug the network cable from the network port on the wall to the WAN port of the router. Most of them have a separate blue port. Don't plug it into the LAN port. If you plug it into the wrong router, you won't be able to get the address, and the background will always show Connecting.

The second step is to enter the router backend and set the Internet access method to "obtain IP automatically". The campus network is not like the home broadband where you need to fill in the PPPoE account and password. The network port on the wall is a ready-made network, and the router just needs to connect it.

The third step is to open a web page and wait for the authentication page to pop up. Type in mobile browser baidu.com , the page will jump to the school's authentication system, enter your student ID and password, and after successful login, all the devices in the dormitory will be connected - the authentication is hung on the WAN port of the router, and several subsequent devices will follow this path.

There is a pit here worth mentioning: The authentication page does not pop up . My roommate's cell phone failed to pop up after ten minutes of tinkering. I took it over and took a look. Her cell phone had data enabled - both data and WiFi were available at the same time. The system prioritized traffic. Accessing web pages did not go through the campus network at all, so the authentication page naturally did not pop up. Turn off the traffic and the page will pop up in seconds. There are also some browsers that block the authentication page as an advertisement. Just change the browser.

Another thing is to have a number in advance: Re-authentication is required after a power outage. Authentication is time-limited. The session will be disconnected as soon as the router is powered off. After the call comes in, the first device to access the Internet will pop up the login page again. Just enter the account and password once. It does not mean that the network is broken.

Client-certified schools are the most troublesome, don’t take any wrong path

If I find out that your school is Ruijie or Dr.COM This kind of client authentication makes things difficult. The authentication client only recognizes Windows computers and cannot run in routers. Ordinary home routers are just bricks in schools like this.

You can find a lot of tutorials on "Router Simulation Campus Network Authentication" on the Internet, including the ones about flashing OpenWrt and installing authentication plug-ins. I'll put it here: Don't touch . First, this violates the network management regulations of most schools. The authentication server will detect anomalies and will ban your account for a few hours, or in severe cases, punish you. ； Second, the energy spent in tinkering with this set of things is enough for you to review two courses. It's not worthwhile to take this risk in order to save some traffic.

There are two right paths. The first is to ask the school network center if there is an official compatibility solution. Some schools support binding the router to the account, or the school sells customized routers themselves, which is more expensive and saves worry about compliance. The second is to simply not install a router.: Use the computer to open the client through the network cable, and use the mobile phone to apply for a campus card. Nowadays, the data cards provided by operators to students are very generous, starting from 40 to 50 gigabytes, which is enough for watching videos in the dormitory. If you think your mobile phone data is not enough, you can also check it out Portable WiFi , but that thing is also in deep trouble. It took me three months to find out about the pitfalls of false speed limits, so I thought about it carefully before buying it.

One of my roommates used to have a client-certified school. She said that at that time, the whole dormitory was connected to computers with network cables and mobile phone data, so there was nothing she couldn't tolerate.

The WiFi in the whole building is fighting, and the channel and home are different.

After connecting to the Internet, I did one thing first: I installed a WiFiAnalyzer on my Android phone and scanned the surrounding area. Good guy, more than 40 WiFis were scanned out on one floor, and the three clean channels 1, 6, and 11 of the 2.4G frequency band were all full and red.

This is the biggest difference between the dormitory and home. The 2.4G at home can sweep out at most seven or eight signals from neighbors. The dormitory building has dozens of rooms, each with one or two routers, and the density is an order of magnitude different. 2.4G is basically useless in this environment. The niece's mobile phone can only measure 20 Mbps at 2.4G speed, and it shakes from time to time.

Fortunately, the dormitory is small, just over ten square meters, and the router is on the table, so there is no need to go through the wall. So the one at home「 2.4G is reserved for old equipment, and 5G wall penetration is weak 」It's very important to go directly to the dormitory and do the opposite.: Fully connected 5G that can connect to 5G . Only seven or eight signals were found in the 5G frequency band. I picked the emptiest channel 44 and nailed it manually. The speed measured on the table was 92 Mbit/s, which was enough for the 100 Mbit/s package.

Two small details were taken care of easily. First, do not include the building number or room number in the WiFi name. I saw a name like "Building 5, 326" in the scan list - the whole building can see this name, which means that the schedule and equipment are exposed to everyone, and it is easy to collide with the name next door. Naming is a matter of particular importance . The second is to change the password on the spot to the default 16-digit mixed number. People come and go in the dormitory building. It is a trivial matter to use the Internet, but it is troublesome if someone logs in in the background. You can change it in two minutes on your mobile phone .

By the way, remember to turn off the automatic channel after the channel is nailed. If the router at home automatically jumps, at most the smart device will be disconnected. In a fully loaded environment like a dormitory, a channel jump is equivalent to fighting for the territory again with dozens of routers. This trap has been stepped on by my sweeper , the dormitory is even more inescapable.

The power and internet will be cut off at 23:30. Let’s figure out these things first.

The day after I registered, my niece sent me a message asking me: The WiFi was gone at 11:30 pm, maybe the router was broken. I said it's not broken, the power in your dormitory is out.

Power outage is a common operation in domestic university dormitories. The time varies from school to school. The most common ones are 23:00 and 23:30. Many schools postpone the power outage for half an hour or simply continue on Friday and Saturday. After a power outage, the router disconnects from the network, restarts when an incoming call comes, and everything remains the same. Just know two things in advance.

First, the router’s time will be reset to zero. Most home routers do not have batteries, and the time is lost once the power is turned off. If a timer function is set, the execution point will drift after a call comes. This problem is also common in families . Routers used in dormitories basically don’t need timing, so just be aware of it.

Second, the Internet speed will be congested at night. The exit of the campus network is shared by the whole school. The peak time is from 9 to 11 pm. My niece measured the speed at 92 Mbps during the day and then at 9:30 pm. Measure according to normal posture There are only about sixty signs left. This is a normal phenomenon and is not caused by the router, and there is no need to report it for repair. If you really want to play games, the ping value will also jump during this period. It is an innate constitution of the dormitory network. Plugging in the network cable can make it better. How to check the delay? I have written before .

As for someone on the Internet using a power bank to recharge the router to survive a power outage - it is technically possible, but the router requires 12V, and ordinary power banks cannot carry it with 5V, so you need to add a PD decoy line. I have paired this thing with a Xiaomi router. . My opinion is that it is not necessary. The purpose of power outage is to let you sleep. Use the data to cover important matters before going to bed, which is better than anything else.

Four types of people are in tune

Give an order at the end: First, ask about the authentication method. For web authentication, buy a 100-yuan dual-band router. Plug the network cable into the WAN port, select automatic acquisition as the Internet access method, pop up the authentication page, scan around to nail the 5G channel, change the name and password. The whole journey takes half an hour, which is easier than installing broadband at home. The only troublesome step is at the very beginning - figuring out how to accredit the school. If you do this step right, the rest will be smooth sailing.