What is EduRoam
What is EduRoam?
EduRoam or Education Roaming is a global wireless network access service developed for the international research and education community. It allows students, researchers and staff to obtain internet connectivity across campus. When visiting other participating institution, they can easily connect to the internet by opening their laptop and use their home institution credentials.
EduRoam uses the IEEE 802.1X protocol (WPA2-enterprise) and a system of interconnected RADIUS servers, with the main U.S. node operated by Internet2 in collaboration with the global Eduroam community.
Why do you need EduRoam?
We live in the world where WIFI access is a necessity in institutions, businesses or campuses. With Eduroam, this will make your venue more attractive for meetings or conferences as it allows participants to access network without assistance.
EduRoam is secured and can give an access to thousands of participating hotspots globally.
The cost of implementing and maintaining EduRoam is fair and acceptable. It can help reduce cost and workload for IT Department such as the need to supply temporary accounts to visiting users. Less work can mean less headaches for your IT or Administrative people.
The log-ins are secured which means that passwords are kept private at all times and misbehaving user can be always identified with the help of their home institution.
Overall, EduRoam makes it possible for visiting students, staff and researchers use their EduRoam credentials to access secured WIFI quickly and easily without (or at the most minimum) assistance and support.
How do you deploy EduRoam?
The basic process to set up EduRoam is as follows:
The school or school district registers with EduRoam and verifies identity and domain control.
Once registered they are given credentials to an administration page which allows them to associate their domain with an IP address for their RADIUS server. They are also given a pre-shared secret for their RADIUS server to authenticate to the EduRoam RADIUS servers.
The internal RADIUS server needs to handle three scenarios of clients authenticating on the EduRoam SSID. o A local user is attempting to authenticate - no need to involve EduRoam's RADIUS' servers.
o An external EduRoam visitor is on-campus attempting to authenticate. Authentication is sent to EduRoam's RADIUS servers, expect return response.
o A local user is visiting or "roaming" off-campus. Authentication attempt is received from EduRoam's RADIUS servers, need to authenticate and return response.