Connecting to Eduroam On OS X Lion (10.7+)

So I was over at UNSW the other day accessing some of the books in the library as, once again, I’d left my essay until the last minute and all the books were out in Fisher. I noticed the eduroam SSID popup when I went to check for Wifi. For the uninitiated, eduroam allows users from participating institutions to access wifi even if they aren’t at their home institution (check out this YouTube video done by AARNet).  I remember have using eduroam at UNSW a while ago when I had Snow Leopard. So I tried to follow the instructions I used the first time at: http://staff.ask.sydney.edu.au/app/answers/detail/a_id/285/~/how-do-i-access-eduroam-on-my-mac-computer%3F but I noticed the little disclaimer that stated that eduroam didn’t work with Lion at this stage.

So apparently, Apple have the removed the ability to create your own 802.1X profiles in Lion (and Mountain Lion) so I couldn’t configure it myself. Now, I managed to get eduroam setup on my iPhone using a .mobileconfig profile that USYD provided. I thought that if I perhaps downloaded that it might work on the Mac, as knowing Apple, there would probably be some form of interoperability between OS X and iOS. Sure enough, the profile installed but for some reason had issues connecting.

After a little bit more research, I discovered that my hunch about OS X using iOS configuration profiles was right. I could actually create my own profiles using the iPhone Configuration Utility. Which is what I then proceeded to do.

Given that the .mobileconfig is basically just an XML file, I opened up the iOS version in VIM and was able to replicate the basic settings, there were a few things that I had to change to get it to work on the Mac but after a bit of trial and error I got an acceptable profile that worked.

I have uploaded the file below. Just double click it, accept that fact that it isn’t a signed certificate (the original one wasn’t either) and then enter your username as: UniKey@usyd.edu.au (this is important! It’s not the same as your email!) and your password as your normal UniKey password. You might need to hit continue a few times. After that, connect to the eduroam network, again using [email protected] as the username and your normal UniKey password.

Now this profile isn’t specific to The University of Sydney, even though it’s there in the organisation name, purely for organisation sake. So if you want to get eduroam working on Lion (I tested this on Mountain Lion but there’s no difference really), then download this file, and run it. You should login using the details that your home uni provides. If you google “eduroam <uni name>” it should tell you what username you need to use.

Download Link

Actually, if your Uni doesn’t provide a config for iOS, then this might actually get you on eduroam on your iDevice. This is why I like Apple products, nice and seamless.

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