Restrictions to Halls of Residence Network Service
As stated in our Terms and Restrictions the use of halls internet connection is aimed at academic study and access to the World Wide Web & Email only.
Like most educational institutions in the UK, Kingston University has taken measures to restrict access to ports used for non-academic functions, including:
• Running servers
• File Sharing (P2P)
• Online games
• Messaging services *
• Web cam and VOIP (Internet Telephony) etc
• SMTP
Whilst it is possible that some games and messaging utilities will work within our existing setup, Inofmration Services have no plans to further increase access levels or open up further ports on our firewall. This policy is to help us to ensure that usage stays within the guidelines set out by our service provider (Joint Academic Network) and to help prevent heavy bandwidth usage causing contention issues.
* A Note on Messengers:
Many of the most recent versions of messengers, including MSN, will run over Port 80, which is not blocked by Kingston University. Certain functions of some messenger programs (such as file sharing) may not work. Web based alternatives are available for many formats, such as http://www.e-buddy.com which accesses MSN, AIM and Yahoo. Other multi-network messengers such as IM2 can be configured to work on our network.
A Note on File Sharing:
Peer to Peer (File sharing) is not permitted. Previously, P2P ports were not restricted but have had to be closed due to the sheer scale of illegal file-sharing. JANET, the UK's academic ISP has a responsibility to prevent illegal use of their networks, and the University in turn has a similar responsibility to JANET.
A Note on "Tunneling":
We are aware of proxy services (such as http-tunnel.com) that 'tunnel" via Port 80. These services offer the ability to bypass port restrictions for a small monthly PayPal payment (£3-£5) which can seem like a worthwhile deal. Kingston University does NOT recommend the use of such services which work with some programs and not others, can have high latency and do not support UDP.
SMTP Email protocol
This is deliberately blocked to prevent our servers being used as relays and general email spoofing. This policy will not be changed. Non-KU mail is available to pick-up via POP3, or to send and pick-up via IMAP or web interfaces. KU mail is only supported through OWA
Ports Open (please note that this is for guidance only and is subject to change without notice):
DHCP
BOOTP
DNS
TCP Port 3724
UDP Port 1200
UDP Ports 27000 – 27015
TCP Ports 27030 – 27039
IMAP
WWW (80)
8080
HTTPS
POP3
FTP-Data
FTP
SSH
Telnet (23)
TCP 5560 to 141.241.224.21
TCP 8331 to 130.150.202.65
Ping
Deny all other ports