The mailing list for users of the eduroam Configuration Assistant Tool (CAT)

[Hunter Fuller <hf0002 AT uah.edu>]

We were going to try to do all that but it turned into a mess. Instead
we tell users to join our self-service guest Wi-Fi which has a captive
portal that sends them a one-time password via SMS. Once they are
connected just like a guest would, they have Internet access and can
install CAT/geteduroam without issue. Our CAT profile deletes the
guest SSID which results in a clean transition from the guest Wi-Fi to
eduroam.

--
Hunter Fuller (they)
Router Jockey
VBH M-1C
+1 256 824 5331

Office of Information Technology
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Network Engineering

On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 10:33 AM Eleanor Coultish
<cat-users AT lists.geant.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Apologies for cross posting with one of the Jisc groups but I thought 
> people on here might have some additional feedback. I'm looking at 
> improving the user experience of our onboarding/setup ssid and have hit a 
> few issues so I was wondering how other institutions implement this.
>
> I envisaged a user would connect to our setup ssid which most devices 
> automatically detect as a captive portal and redirect the user to a 
> 'sign-in' setup page. This page is an information page of how to connect 
> with a link to the eduroam cat tool so that users can configure their 
> devices to connect to eduroam. The ssid has an allow/white list to various 
> websites to give users access to the tools required to configure their 
> devices. These are the problems I've hit so far with this:
>
> Apple:
> Apple devices check for connectivity to captive.apple.com and when they 
> can't reach that they fire up the CNA (Captive Network Assistant). This 
> doesn't have full browser capability and doesn't allow a user to download 
> the mobile config file that's required to configure their device. Has 
> anyone found a way around this? The only solution I've found is that I can 
> bypass CNA on the captive portal (Aruba) which means the user has to open a 
> web browser the navigate to the setup page.
>
> Android:
> To enable download of the geteduroam app from Google Play I have to 
> whitelist www.google.com. With that url in the whitelist Android thinks it 
> has Internet access so doesn't redirect to the captive portal to display 
> the 'sign-in' setup page. Again the user would have to open a web browser 
> and browse to the setup page.
>
> My thinking was that the automatic redirect was a better user experience. 
> Am I fighting a losing battle trying to use the automatic detection of the 
> captive portal to direct users to a setup page for onboarding? Should I 
> just whitelist the url's that detect this and recommend going through the 
> browser? I'm interested in how other institutions have this set up and what 
> the user experience is?
>
> Thanks,
> Eleanor Coultish
> Network Operations Manager
>
> IT Services
> Directorate of Technology, Estates and Facilities
> University of York | Heslington | York | YO10 5DD
> + 44 (0)1904 328467
>
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