Eduroam FAQ

What is eduroam?
eduroam is a collaborative network that allows students, staff and faculty to access wireless service at cooperating universities without the need for obtaining a guest account. It allows a user visiting another institution to login using the same credentials they would at home.

How does eduroam work?
When a user tries to log on to the wireless network of a visited eduroam-enabled institution, the user's authentication request is sent to the user's home institution. This is done via a hierarchical system of RADIUS servers. The user's home institution verifies the user's credentials and sends to the visited institution (via the RADIUS servers) the result of such a verification.

What are the restrictions of eduroam?
The network restrictions placed on eduroam is at the discretion of the institution providing the service. At the very minimum, eduroam provides basic network connectivity for web browsing (HTTP), secure shell (SSH) and VPN only. There is no guarantee that eduroam will provide the same access to resources as the home or visited institution’s standard wireless networks.

Is it safe to use eduroam?
At the very least, eduroam wireless networks implement WPA/TKIP encryption with 802.1x authentication. Some institutions may offer additional methods such as WPA2/AES or mixed‐mode operation (WPA and WPA2). This ensures that the wireless portion of you connection is secure; however, you should still continue to use protocols that provide end-to-end encryption such as HTTPS and SSH. Concordia’s implementation uses WPA2/AES, and places students, faculty, and staff into a secure network space when they use eduroam on campus.

What are the technical requirements for eduroam?
Connecting to an eduroam network requires a WPA compatible wireless adapter and an 802.1x supplicant. The EAP type (TTLS, TLS, PEAP, etc) required by a visiting user will be the same as the user's home institution. eduroam uses open standards to enable cross platform uniform access. This means that eduroam works on Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS, Android, and Windows Phones.

How do I get support for eduroam?
Users wishing to connect to eduroam must acquire support from their home institution only. Institutions hosting eduroam connectivity are not required to provide support to visiting guest users. For Concordia faculty, staff and students, please contact the IT Services Helpdesk for assistance.