Limited membership and duration

Departmental systems with a demonstrated need for high-speed, high-bandwidth, low-latency access to other research sites can be placed on this network. Departmental systems with a demonstrated need to be positioned outside the campus firewalls can also be placed on this network. Researchers' desktop systems, web servers, mail servers, and other ordinary computing equipment should remain within the protection of the campus firewalls and within your department's regular IP range(s). Research systems should only remain on the Illinois Research Network for the duration of the project. When the grant ends or the project concludes, the research computing systems should be brought back within your departmental network.

Availability

Membership in the Illinois Research Network is available in any campus building with a direct, wired connection to a campus core node. You cannot place a computer on this network if the network connection you are using is to IllinoisNet Wireless or another wireless network. You must have a physical cable connection to the campus network. You also cannot host a computer off campus, connect via a third party ISP, and join the Illinois Research Network. Research network systems must be located on campus and be connected to the University of Illinois network.

Network configuration settings

• Technology Services' DNS management: The research network will use the Technology Services DNS servers for identity management. Use the following DNS settings on research network computers: DNS server: 130.126.2.131

• IP address ranges used: The research network IP address range available to your department's hosts will be within the 192.17.16.0/21 range. In most cases, your department's section of the research network will be a /28 or /29 segment (providing space for 14 hosts or 6 hosts, respectively). If you need more than 14 hosts allocated to the research network at one time, special arrangements can be made with Technology Services Networking. 

• Packet Size: Systems placed on the Illinois Research Network must have their standard packet size changed to 9000 bytes in order to function properly.

• Security considerations: Because the Illinois Research Network is positioned outside the campus firewall, there are several security issues to consider. Departmental IT pros will need to work with your researcher(s) to come up with a plan for securing your departmental subnet within the Illinois Research Network. 

• Access to resources within the campus firewall: The campus firewall offers different protection levels, from Fully Open to Fully Closed and with several options in between. Computers on the Illinois Research Network are treated as off-campus systems, which means that connections from this network to other University computers will be affected by the firewall protection levels surrounding on-campus systems. If your research systems support PPTP connections, you can connect to the campus VPN using the instructions for your operating system. You'll need to implement split tunneling so that your research data can have unrestricted high-speed access to the Internet and won't be sent through the VPN server, which will slow down the data transfer rates. The only data you should send through the VPN server is the data intended for an on-campus destination. Once you've set up a split tunneling VPN connection, your research network computers will have a secure way to access University resources protected by the campus firewall.

• Access to departmental resources: If you have a firewall surrounding your departmental network, you'll also need to make arrangements for your computers on the Illinois Research Network to be able to connect to your departmental network. This may involve moving departmental servers into a different access category in your departmental firewall.

How to join the Illinois Research Network

If you've decided that your project would benefit from use of the Illinois Research Network, please send an email to consult@illinois.edu with the subject line containing "Illinois Research Network" or "CARNE".