Bill B's questions

OK, like all college IT departments, we've been battling P2P abuse and trying to figure out how to effectively mitigate it's impact on our network infrastructure....

And then we find out TODAY that we're leasing space in two of OUR dormitories to students from a university located across the street. ( 100 students total, 50 in each building in question. )

Our budget: Free. (We've got a few Pentium 3 and 4 desktops around for use. )

We're only obligated to provide HTTP traffic support to the dorm room RJ-45 jack. No VOIP considerations, nothing. Each building's on a distinct VLAN.

Is it feasible, in theory, to use something like pfSense running on a PIII or Pentium IV-class box with 2 NICs to restrict HTTP traffic/packet shaping/etc? This is not a permanent thing-- they're only leasing dorms for one semester-- but never having done this before, I'm looking for any guidance the community here can offer.

( I'm thinking one box per building that's being leased... )

EDIT: Outside connection to internet at large: 12mbits. All dorms are on a subset of IPs that are in a separate 'lane' that can't exceed 30% of total.

Let's begin.

Are we seated comfortably?

Once upon a time, company A registered their domain name with GoDaddy.com, and contracted with another local "web design firm" to handle their web and email needs.

The "web design firm", which in this case turns out to be Just Some Guy With Photoshop, well-- they went incommunicado several months back.

The domain was registered with Company A listed as the registrant, and the web designer listed himself as administrative contact. The domain has expired as of last week.

(insert horrified gasps here, as the beleaguered small-business-owner panics, and calls his friend, who happens to be my boss, who makes finding a resolution to this situation My Problem. )

GoDaddy is being less than cooperative with inquiries as to how we need to proceed in order to change the contact information, so that we can renew the domain, and make everything right with the world.

( Even pointing to online records that indicate that we aren't the only ones looking for Web Guy, and that two sheriff's departments would like to have a word with him hasn't helped. )

Any advice as to how to proceed would be most welcomed. Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

Despite numerous attempts to follow GoDaddy's stated procedures, the domain wound up going to auction. Business owner told my boss to "get the domain, period." One auction later, it's back in the hands of the owner. Original web designer who dropped out of contact/etc is apparently in custody of the authorities for various non-related crimes. Thanks for reading/answering/etc.

Since I've actually run UNIX for personal use outside of work, that apparently makes me the newly anointed Macintosh expert at my workplace... I've got an open-access computer lab (12 iMacs )that will be used for limited video, photo, and audio editing. There is no central fileserver, and they are not joined to any directory service-- it's all got to be local user login.

How do I student-proof these workstations and minimize my headaches going forward? The students are going to be required to use their own external HDs for file storage, per the professors in question.