How to manage visitor network accounts

You will need to have been given visitor network account management access for the sponsoring unit and know the full name of the visitor and full name of the person who is sponsoring their access.

1. Access the Visitor Network Account Administration site
2. Select the default group for the sponsor's unit. This will be named "Default Group for unit" and is most easily found by click the Show All button to get an alphabetical list of all groups
3. Complete the new user form, then select Add User
4. Select the icon in the Credentials column to download a PDF containing full instructions for getting online, the login credentials, and confirmation of the validity period. Print or send this to the sponsor or visitor themselves

If you need to set up multiple accounts with the same validity period and sponsor then use custom groups.

1. Access the Visitor Network Account Administration site
2. Select Add New Group
3. Complete the new group form, then select Add New Group
4. To download individual PDFs to give to the sponsor or visitors: select the Manage Users tab, then select the icon in the Credentials column for each account to download a PDF containing full instructions for getting online, the login credentials, and confirmation of the validity period
5. To download a list of all login credentials: select the Groups and Users tab, find the group you just created, and select the PDF or CSV icon in the Credentials column

Further information

Automatically generated accounts can be valid for the life of the group (up to 92 days), but accounts generated later will only be valid for up to 14 days.

1. Access the Visitor Network Account Administration site, or select the Groups and Users tab if you are already there
2. Find the group whose users you wish to manage as described in Manage groups, above
3. Select the title of the group (or the small e icon in the Edit / Delete column of a custom group), then select the Manage Users tab
4. Complete the new user form on this page to add new users to the group, as described in Create accounts, above.  The credential documents of a custom group will be updated automatically with the new information
5. Select the symbol in the Enabled column for the account will toggle between a green tick indicating that the account is enabled and a red barrier symbol to show it is disabled. Disabling an account immediately disconnects the user from the visitor network and prevents them from logging in
6. Select the x icon in the group's Edit / Delete column to delete the account
7. Select the Activity Report tab to view a list of accounts in the group that are currently logged into the visitor network

The Head of IT (ITSS01) can grant and revoke visitor network administrator access via the Delegation Control: Visitor Network Accounts page. Visitor network administrators must be either ITSS or staff members of the unit.

If the Head of IT is not available for a prolonged period of time, please contact IT Support Staff Services to discuss alternatives.

The service operates in a similar way to those provided in coffee shops and airport lounges; no special software is required other than a web browser that supports cookies.  A device with network connectivity and a web browser supporting cookies should have no problem connecting to the Visitor Network, in particular wherever the OWL WiFi service is available.

A PDF instruction document is available for each account, including basic steps for getting online, username, password and the times that the account will be active.

For cases where the wireless network requires minimal network configuration, the settings being:

• SSID (Network Name): OWL
• Static WEP: Disabled
• WEP Authentication: Open (not Shared)
• Network Type: Infrastructure (not Ad-Hoc)

Once supplied with their username and password, when attempting to browse to any web page the web request is intercepted with a redirection to our login page.  After entering their credentials and accepting our terms and conditions, largely based on the current University IT statutes, they are given internet access and redirected back to the originally intercepted page (or http://www.ox.ac.uk/ if we didn't manage to capture it successfully).

Access is permitted for ten hours at a time, after which the user must log in again. After 15 minutes of inactivity the visitor is also disconnected from the service in order to resist some forms of spoofing attack, however credentials are not required until the ten hour window expires.  A visitor can therefore come and go from the service, only needing to log back in occasionally.

Traffic on this service is routed outside of the University network. Therefore although clients may be physically within a University or college building, they connect to the University's network as if coming form the internet, and hence have no special access to network servers and are restricted by our JANET connection firewall. Clients will be leased RFC1918 (private) IP addresses, translated into public addresses that are not part of the common University allocation; these addresses also appear in our oxuni.org.uk DNS domain rather than ox.ac.uk.