Members using LDS Id's to authenticate in meeting houses

Discussions about Internet service providers (ISPs), the Meetinghouse Firewall, wired and wireless networking, usage, management, and support of Meetinghouse Internet
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tomsquatch
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Members using LDS Id's to authenticate in meeting houses

#1

Post by tomsquatch »

I'm a member of our Bishopric and an IT professional by trade. We recently have gone through the process to get internet and wireless in our ward meeting house. We have all the church approved equipment. Upon completion of the project our Stake Tech spec. advised our Stake President only wants members of the Bishopric to have access to the wireless in the building. Our Stake Tech spec. sited examples of abuse stories from our stake and some from church headquarters. So our Stake president decided to make this policy.

My question is to not question my Stake President, as I respect his decision and authority to govern our stake. One item brought up was that in 2012 the church was going to implement the ability for a member to be required to enter their LDS ID to gain access to the internet (wireless) in a meeting house. Does anyone know how far along is this project is and is there an implementation schedule? Also, is there any way we can be put on a list to be a test site this new feature?

Thank you!

KeithWilson
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#2

Post by KeithWilson »

Good question. I have the same question, however, our Stake President has delegated access to each bishop. He gives the password out, as needed, to those who want/need it. We are changing it every 6 months, but are anxious to get going with the LDS Account Authentication. We have 3 buildings in our stake, two with 3 wireless routers, one with two. It's my understanding that this is driven by the FM group, based on budgets.

Based on a webinar training I attended originating in Lehi, Utah I think the following information is still accurate.
All firewalls and wireless access points must purchased by the FM group, and all must be upgraded to the Cisco 881W Firewall, and Cisco 1041N wireless access points. These are then accessed, configured and maintained from HQ. They have the hardware and software to enable the LDS Account authentication. All basic access, (connecting to the access point) will be standardized with the same SSID and Password throughout every building in the church. But you won't be able to go anywhere until after you login to your LDS Account.

And, our stake would love to be a beta site as well,
Spanish Fork River Stake, Spanish Fork, Utah
russellhltn
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#3

Post by russellhltn »

The Church rarely gives out information on when new features can be expected. When they do, there are frequently delays beyond the expected time frame.

All I can say is do the best you can until it does come.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

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dfdavis
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#4

Post by dfdavis »

RussellHltn wrote:The Church rarely gives out information on when new features can be expected. When they do, there are frequently delays beyond the expected time frame.

All I can say is do the best you can until it does come.

I guess on the surface, when I first heard of the coming plans for the member login, it seemed like a dream come true. After thinking a bit more, what is the actual difference to our buildings network connections if one of these two things are the case.
1. a members iphone (sake of conversation only) logs on to the building WiFi using the "standard" username/password automatically when they walk in the door or...
2. a members Iphone logs on using their LDS username and password when they walk in the door. either way automatic logon. I think most smart devices have this as default. When I asked this question to the Salt Lake Networking people, they suggested having a basket at the door to collect members smart devices after they were turned off. I am not going there...LOL I really hope I did not offend when I laughed at this one.
Either way, in my case, our stake building having 2 overlaping wards, there is a good possibility of many users either way everytime the door is open. Then if you add in the future plans for the Sunday am streaming of video, using the internet system for conferences, video's trainings, teachers etc, when I have lots of members logged in and using lots of bandwidth. For now, I honestly have no idea just how many of our members know the "standard" logon. And also for now... as long as my ward clerks can connect on Sundays to make their MLS transfer, I am not that concerned..... for now. For this make much of a difference, there is going to have to be some system for controlling the building system logon...(NOC). I am really waiting to see how all this is going to work.
Again....YES, it is the descression of the Stake President.... but how do we answer his questions when he asks us how things work and what should be done? Not all Stake Presidents are tech savvy.
Donald F. Davis Jr.
Stake IT
Bloomington Indiana :)
lajackson
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#5

Post by lajackson »

dfdavis wrote:. . . but how do we answer his questions when he asks us how things work and what should be done? Not all Stake Presidents are tech savvy.
Explain it in simple terms. Any stake president is savvy enough to understand that if only 15 folks can log onto a network, when number 16 comes along, even if it is the stake computer doing the broadcast, it will have to wait until one of the first 15 log off.

He may not understand why, but he will understand the principle.
russellhltn
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#6

Post by russellhltn »

dfdavis wrote:1. a members iphone (sake of conversation only) logs on to the building WiFi using the "standard" username/password automatically when they walk in the door or...

Let's see if I can recalibrate somethings here:

It's my understanding that wireless devices do not connect to WiFi when they are asleep. As such, it shouldn't be automatic when they walk in the door, but automatic when they wake the device up to do something, such as looking up a scripture reference.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
dfdavis
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#7

Post by dfdavis »

lajackson wrote:Explain it in simple terms. Any stake president is savvy enough to understand that if only 15 folks can log onto a network, when number 16 comes along, even if it is the stake computer doing the broadcast, it will have to wait until one of the first 15 log off.

He may not understand why, but he will understand the principle.

Or in this case...he just made a call to the Global Support and have the amount of connections changed to 25... actually now, I think it is 52.
Actually originally when our building first started having connection issues, I spent right at 40 hours one week trying to figure out why. At times, the clerk's computers had no connectivity and then all of a sudden the connection issue went away and things were fine. The reason for all the time spent...it was so unpredictable at that point and the Family History Director would have machines also with no connectivity. She was not amused. The turning point is when I found one evening a bunch of 20 year olds, in the gym playing basketball, their Iphones on the stage and I had 18 additional connections to the network.
Donald F. Davis Jr.
Stake IT
Bloomington Indiana :)
dfdavis
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#8

Post by dfdavis »

I wish you were right! I really do. My Blackberry does not "go to sleep"
Donald F. Davis Jr.
Stake IT
Bloomington Indiana :)
russellhltn
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#9

Post by russellhltn »

dfdavis wrote:The turning point is when I found one evening a bunch of 20 year olds, in the gym playing basketball, their Iphones on the stage and I had 18 additional connections to the network.

That's not a good sign. In that case, you're probably going to need a few hundred IPs to make sure you don't run out. Especially if you have a overlapping ward schedule.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
StevenMichaelCollins
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#10

Post by StevenMichaelCollins »

We've been having the exact same problem in our stake center: stake presidency + 3 overlapping wards + family history center... we've been running out of IP addresses every Sunday. Just upgraded to one of the new firewalls this week and increased our DHCP range. I'm also going to assign static IPs to all of the clerk computers and family history computers. So hopefully that helps the problem and at least all of those systems always have connectivity. Seems this is going to be a growing problem everywhere with an increasing percentage of people in the building having some type of wifi device.
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