Bandwidth, Security & Architecture

ResNet connects all of Housing's residence halls, cooperative houses and The Gem to the the Internet. One of ResNet's goals is to provide a secure and reliable network for residents. To accomplish this on such a large scale we have a fairly complicated network structure and policies.

• ResNet's Architecture
• Firewall
• Bandwidth Quota
• Traffic Prioritization
• Network Privacy

Room connections are either 10 or 100 megabit Ethernet connections. See the diagram for each building's configuration. The room ports connect to floor switches which then connect to a building switch. The building switches connect to ResNet's backbone switch in Kerr Administration. Network traffic is then prioritized before being sent to OSU's border router which is connected to the Internet and Internet2.

ResNet is behind the OSU firewall which blocks inbound traffic to ResNet from off-campus and the rest of OSU campus. This is to protect the integrity of the network and resident's computers from threats like denial of service attacks, bots, trojans, viruses, worms, etc. The firewall does allow connections via Remote Desktop or SSH to ResNet computers from the rest of the campus nework.

The firewall does not have open ports for web servers, game servers, etc. However, servers on ResNet's LAN are allowed. All OSU students also have web space provided by ONID and the OSU Gaming Club provides game servers for on & off-campus use.

ResNet strongly suggests continued use of your computer's firewall.

Bandwidth refers to the amount of network traffic that can flow through the network. OSU has a limited amount of bandwidth for off-campus connections as it is very expensive to purchase and maintain. ResNet is extremely fast, but also has limited bandwidth shared with the rest of the University. To provide a fair and equitable amount of bandwidth for all residents, ResNet has a bandwidth quota for all users.

The bandwidth quota on ResNet provides each ResNet user with 12 gigabytes per day of data transfer to/from off-campus destinations. Once a ResNet user exceeds their accumulated quota connection to off-campus will be limited to web browsing via the OSU proxy server. Quotas are reset daily between 12:00am and 6:00am. Only traffic to/from off-campus will be counted toward the quota. So, any traffic to/from on-campus will not be counted. Data transfers via the OSU Proxy Server and the OSU FTP Server ftp.oregonstate.edu also do not count against your quota.

ResNet and OSU have a limited amount of bandwidth available for internet use. ResNet has a very sophisticated piece of equipment, Cisco SCE 2000, that prioritizes network traffic to and from ResNet. The Cisco SCE 2000 identifies network traffic and prioritizes it to provide a fair and equitable amount of bandwidth for all residents. For example, ResNet classifies file sharing applications such as Bit Torrent, DC++, iMesh, Gnutella, Kaaza, Morpheus, etc. at a very low priority so the bandwidth for web browsing, email, and games are not degraded. By limiting file sharing traffic we can save the University (and students) thousands of dollars in bandwidth costs and increase the performance of the network for everyone.

The Cisco SCE 2000 identifies and catalogues the different types of traffic that move across the network; then ResNet sets priorities based on the type of traffic and where the traffic goes to or originates from. Here are the basic rules ResNet follows:

• All traffic to and from the rest of campus is virtually ignored by the Cisco SCE 2000. This traffic runs at full network speed.
• Web browsing, SSH, telnet and games are set to a higher priority.
• All other traffic bound for the Internet (not counting file sharing) such as ftp, streaming audio or video, is given a medium priority. If the bandwidth is available, then the only limit is our bandwidth cap.
• File sharing applicaitons are given the lowest priority. We realize that this may mean extremely slow downloads and problems connecting. However, file sharing is an incredible consumer of bandwidth, and no matter how much bandwidth ResNet allows for file sharing, it would never be enough. File sharing application traffic consumes such quantities of bandwidth that the legitimate educational uses of not only ResNet, but also the rest of OSU's network would suffer.
• The Cisco SCE 2000 also has the ability to recognize some malicious worms and traffic and block it from going on or off-campus.

ResNet does not monitor the content of network traffic except to determine if it poses a threat to the network, a resident's computer or privacy. We are concerned with network performance and which applications are running on the network, not the content of what residents are transferring, reading, or which web sites are visited.

We work daily to keep ResNet tuned and performing at peak. We monitor performance, update hardware and software, and analyze network traffic to make sure no single program that is non-educational in nature interferes with the educational use of ResNet. Please remember that we strive to maintain a fair and equitable use of bandwidth. If you are have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact the OSU Computer Helpdesk.