About this page

This page describes the physical layout of network ports in West Village H. It is provided for your convenience in case you need to request a network change in your office (so that you can describe the port in question) or in case you are unsure where to connect a given computer.

Network sixpacks

Wired network access in West Village H is available via ports (in groups of six) which can be found in plastic faceplates along the walls. We call these groupings of six ports “sixpacks.” A six pack looks like this:

Naming Convention

The ports are named as follows:

Room-Bldg-Sixpack#

[A]   [B]
[C]   [D]
[E]   [F]

eg: The bottom-rightmost port in the ninth sixpack in room 102 of building West Village H would be identified as 102-WVH-9F, and the upper-leftmost port in the first sixpack in room 400 of building West Village H would be identified as 400-WVH-1A. The sixpack label (everything but the port letter) always appears at the top of the sixpack. The individual ports are not labeled.

Use Convention

In a standard sixpack, each port has an assigned role:

• A: Telephone (hardwired, can’t be changed)
• B: NUNET network (hardwired, can’t be changed)
• C: CCIS: Managed UNIX/Linux machines (can be changed if needed)
• D: CCIS: Managed Windows machines (can be changed if needed)
• E: CCIS: Free port, can be configured as needed (eg: managed UNIX/Windows, Community Port, etc)
• F: CCIS: Free port, can be configured as needed (eg: managed UNIX/Windows, Community Port, etc)

For consistency’s sake, we prefer not to change ports C or D from their assigned functions, but can reassign them in cases where there are no other options. Ports E and F are available to be community ports (faculty/staff/grad personal laptops/desktops), secondary managed UNIX/Windows ports, or other roles as needed.

Using ports

Feel free to connect your laptop or other non-Systems managed machine to port E or F (if free) in any given sixpack. If you are not able to obtain a DHCP lease, the port may have been reconfigured for a previous office tenant, in which case you should request a change.

Please do not unplug devices that you do not manage (eg: printers, Systems-managed desktops, other people’s desktops/laptops, etc) to “free up” ports for your own use. If there are no available ports near you, please contact Systems.

Requesting a port change

If you need a port’s VLAN (aka subnet, aka network segment) changed, please contact Systems (systems@ccs.neu.edu) with the port descriptor (eg: 123-WVH-4E) and a description of what you’d like to connect (eg: “my laptop,” “my printer,” etc).