University Eduroam Network

timurkiyivinski · 2015-06-30 03:41:11

My university has recently shifted to Eduroam (and retiring the previous network), and with it made hell for all GNU/Linux users. We're able to connect to the network and the internet, but at a much slower speed than Windows. We cannot find the cause of this. Also, we are no longer able to connect to our VPNs (required for git, ssh) although Windows can. This issue persists with both NetworkManager and Netctl. The provided connection utility is only for Ubuntu, and only up to version 12.10. I've managed to extract a certificate from the installer although the network works without it too. Can anyone provide any input as to how I can go about this?

Note:
This issue is reproducible on 4 Arch Linux installs as well as other distros, various hardware.
We'd like to fix the speed issue and then OpenVPN as the university blocks everything useful.

Thanks

timurkiyivinski · 2015-06-30 03:44:12

Can a moderator close the previous post? Went in twice cause it failed previously and I refreshed. That's how bad it is.

ewaller · 2015-06-30 03:48:53

Done, and glad to help. Please consider using the 'report' link. It increases the chances of a moderator finding the thread much faster. One of us are usually around, and we get notified of reports that occur anywhere in the forums.

timurkiyivinski · 2015-06-30 03:53:59

Okay, thanks a bunch and noted.

ewaller · 2015-06-30 03:57:24

We have had several threads on these forums regarding Eduroam. Make sure you look around and see what others have done.

I've never had to deal with this nightmare, sorry I cannot be any direct help

Alad · 2015-06-30 05:56:10

Your best bet is to contact your network administrator directly.

SiC · 2015-06-30 14:16:11

I use eduroam at work, and have used it successfully to roam around Europe without too much difficulty. One thing that did catch me out was the need for intermediate security certificates to be installed manually.

Not had the problems you are having though, makes me think there is some form of security software on the network which relies on windows to work properly. That's just a guess though.

R00KIE · 2015-06-30 16:59:04

What you describe is one odd problem. Like Alad says you might want to talk with the department responsible for the wireless network and see what they have to say.

If you want to try to troubleshoot this you might want to give the manual setup a try, this means using wpa_supplicant and a dhcp client (dhcpcd or dhclient) and check the output and see if there are any hints that might point to a problem.

You might want to try wpa_supplicant with and without the certificate and see if you can get more clues. Regarding the certificate, the eduroam network I usually use should require a certificate, but it also works without one(1). The online manual/instructions page says it is needed (for linux) but makes no mention about it for windows/mac, and the irony is that the department responsible for the wireless network let the certificate expire so it will definitely not work if I try to use it.

(1) I have seen somewhere (eduroam help page of some university - can't remember which one) that the certificate is used to make sure that you are connecting to the "real" eduroam network and not some rogue network, but I have no idea if it is absolutely required in some cases.

Trilby · 2015-06-30 19:01:10

My former university recently switched to eduroam too. It was a hassle at first as IT explicitly said they don't support linux and we should install windows. *Thanks*

But no matter how much crap and cruft they build into those "connection tool" bloatware they tell eveyone to install, it is still just a wireless network. If you get the right settings to wpa_supplicant, it will connect. The following worked at my university:

network={
        ssid="eduroam"
        key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
        eap=TTLS
        identity="user@network.edu"
        password="mypassword"
        phase2="auth=PAP"
}

One trick here was that user@network.edu (filled in of course) was what was needed for 'identity' even though my email was user@subdomain.network.edu.

The whole (declared/intended) purpose of eduroam is so that once you get it set up, you should be able to connect to eduroam at any university campus with the exact same settings on your computer. Given this, the above settings should allow me to connect to eduroam at any university, and therefore they should work for any other user at an eduroam university. But of course all this rests on the ginormous assumption that eduroam does anything remotely close to its declared purpose.

R00KIE · 2015-06-30 20:27:44

@Trilby
Yeah, that configure once use everywhere thing doesn't always work. I've studied at two different universities, let's call them A and B and I found something like this:

Configuration A works well at University A
Configuration B works well at University B
Configuration A works well at University B
Configuration B does not work at University A

It also seems that there is no "standard" configuration across the eduroam network and it is up to the (in)competence of each IT department to come up with ways to make things work poorly.

Trilby · 2015-06-30 20:35:36

Isn't that job security in IT: make things work ... poorly. If they don't work, you've failed and you're fired. If they work perfectly, you're expendable and "downsized".

timurkiyivinski · 2015-07-01 13:33:05

ewaller wrote:

We have had several threads on these forums regarding Eduroam. Make sure you look around and see what others have done. I've never had to deal with this nightmare, sorry I cannot be any direct help

I've tried, but none seem to address the issue I'm facing or do not help at all.

Alad wrote:

Your best bet is to contact your network administrator directly.

My friends & I have contacted them. They seem uninterested in helping any OS other than Windows. Also, port 22 is blocked. It really is hell. I've tried various settings on both NetworkManager and netctl, those that do connect are very slow. I wish there was a standard for these things. Leave it to Windows admins, huh?

Trilby · 2015-07-01 13:40:55

timurkiyivinski wrote:

I wish there was a standard for these things.

There is. I am quite sure your eduroam network complies with that standard. The problem is only that the network administrators opt not to share the required information to connect to it - so a little trial and error is in order. Use wpa_supplicant - at least for troubleshooting. It doesn't surprise me at all that all those other wrapper tools fail.

R00KIE · 2015-07-01 17:13:47

You should also be able to infer which options you need to set by looking at the windows configuration guide, if you can't find some of the options either leave them out of the configuration or look in the documentation and try to use something that looks very similar. Also let the output of wpa_supplicant guide you in removing/changing options in your config file.

timurkiyivinski · 2015-07-14 03:35:24

Finally back with results, have been trying, using wpa_supplicant really doesn't make a difference. Here's a speedtest I ran:

Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from TMnet Telekom Malaysia (58.26.207.6)...
Selecting best server based on latency...
Hosted by Celcom Axiata (Kuching) [4.46 km]: 63.372 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 1.89 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 0.00 Mbit/s

Upload is the same on Windows. Speed seems to vary on all platforms, just coincidentally terrible for us GNU/Linux users sometimes it seems. OpenVPN connects, works for a while before becoming terribly slow. I think this simply has to do with this QoS plus them monitoring the network traffic. I suppose nothing can be done, thanks anyway y'all.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-06-30 03:41:11

University Eduroam Network

#2 2015-06-30 03:44:12

Re: University Eduroam Network

#3 2015-06-30 03:48:53

Re: University Eduroam Network

#4 2015-06-30 03:53:59

Re: University Eduroam Network

#5 2015-06-30 03:57:24

Re: University Eduroam Network

#6 2015-06-30 05:56:10

Re: University Eduroam Network

#7 2015-06-30 14:16:11

Re: University Eduroam Network

#8 2015-06-30 16:59:04

Re: University Eduroam Network

#9 2015-06-30 19:01:10

Re: University Eduroam Network

#10 2015-06-30 20:27:44

Re: University Eduroam Network

#11 2015-06-30 20:35:36

Re: University Eduroam Network

#12 2015-07-01 13:33:05

Re: University Eduroam Network

#13 2015-07-01 13:40:55

Re: University Eduroam Network

#14 2015-07-01 17:13:47

Re: University Eduroam Network

#15 2015-07-14 03:35:24

Re: University Eduroam Network

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