Safely Connect Wireless printer to Public internet

[suiathon]

I am renting a home owned by a college and they are allowing me to use their open unsecured internet. I have two questions that are interrelated.

1) Can I configure my own router to act as a sub-network that connects to the public wifi, but uses my own credentials (sort of like my own home network). Essentially I want a secure network that I feel safe using. I'm not worried that anything will happen, but you never know. and
2) Whether or not the above is possible, can I hook my printer up online so that I can do wireless printing, but limit access to only myself?

Router is Asus RT-N66U
Printer is Brother - DCP - L2540DW
Wifi - Public (unsecured) College Wifi.

Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Geoff]

It may be possible. To connect to the public WiFi, do you have to authenticate or accept terms before being able to access the internet? If so, are you prompted to accept terms every so often, or is it just the first time?

When you say you are renting a home, is it a shared space or pretty secluded? I ask because in a typical college dorm scenario with tens of access points, adding your own will cause additional interference and many colleges have rogue detection and will inform the residents to turn their own wireless routers off.

 

[suiathon]

When I connect with my phone, I have to click a "connect to wifi" link which redirects me to a browser. After that, I don't have to accept any terms. With my computer, it is automatic. It isn't a dorm. It's a house the college owns and is renting out to non-students. We just happen to be allowed to use their internet.

Perhaps I should just contact the IT guys. Assuming they're the same guys, I know them and worked with a few of them.

 

[Geoff]

When I connect with my phone, I have to click a "connect to wifi" link which redirects me to a browser. After that, I don't have to accept any terms. With my computer, it is automatic. It isn't a dorm. It's a house the college owns and is renting out to non-students. We just happen to be allowed to use their internet.

You can try it this way first, however if you do need to click a link or accept any terms, it will be a bit more tricky.

First you will need to load custom firmware on your router, personally I prefer Tomato over DD-WRT or OpenWRT, but any should work: https://advancedtomato.com/downloads/router/rt-n66u

What you want to do is change the WAN mode to the wireless interface you plan to use to connect (2.4GHz or 5GHz), then on the wireless networking settings you would change one of the interfaces from "Access Point" mode to "Client Mode", enter in the SSID, and make sure it connects and pulls an IP, which it will tell you on the main page.

 

[suiathon]

Thanks for the info, Geoff. I'll check with my roommates to see if we will be getting our own internet in the near future (one wants cable tv) before I try it out. Otherwise, I'll give this a go.