wstrm

Eduroam and wpa_supplicant

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So, I simply use wpa_supplicant for WiFi and wpa_cli for configuration, and none of that bloated NetworkManager. It works great, but can be hard to get the configuration right for corporate and university networks.

Here’s a simple configuration for the Eduroam network, that has been verified to work for LTU (Luleå University of Technology), and several airports in Sweden. Hopefully it also works at the other universities.

network={
        ssid="eduroam"
        scan_ssid=1
        key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
        auth_alg=OPEN
        eap=PEAP
        identity="[email protected]"
        anonymous_identity="[email protected]"
        password="W1ll14m5Ultim4t3L0ngP4ssw0rd123!"
        phase1="peaplabel=0"
        phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"
}

Just copy and paste this into /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and edit the fields identity, anonymous_identity and password.

  • identity: Should be your username with the organization domain added. For LTU you should not use student.ltu.se, you must use uppercase LTU.SE.
  • anonymous_identity: Is allegedly optional, and can be whatever. I simply went with the same value as identity.
  • password: The password you have picked. For LTU, this can be configured using their student portal, Mitt LTU > Mina uppgifter > Byt Lösenord > Byt ditt eduroam lösenord

Restart wpa_supplicant with whatever method you use, for Gentoo it’s:

rc-service wpa_supplicant restart

If you have decided to go rouge and start wpa_supplicant without any service manager (change interface to your WiFi card):

wpa_supplicant -B -i interface -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

And lastly, you can check the status of your connections with:

wpa_cli status