Exporting Certificates from Windows 7 (or Vista) for UConnect mobile devices

Another way to get the certificate for the UConnect network, if you already have Windows 7 (or Vista) working:

Export the certificate from Windows 7 (or Vista) using this information from Microsoft, then import to your device. This can be handy when you're using some mobile device that UTas doesn't support, and the device has difficulty in obtaining the certificate in other ways.

Other details that might be useful: SSID is UConnect, authentication is EAP-PEAP MSCHAPv2. You will still need to have used the UConnect-Setup network to register the MAC address for your device. Registration of MAC addresses are sometimes removed, the last time I know of this happening was some time around February 2010. If you're finally joining the network after previously using UANA, you will also need to remove the proxy settings from your web browser. The UConnect network does not use the UANA proxy settings.

UConnect at UTas with Ubuntu 9.10

When connecting to the UConnect wireless network, the configuration suggested by Ubuntu is correct, except Tunneled TLS should be replaced with PEAP.
Woo, easy.
(Just in case you've messed it up a little, the relevant details that didn't need a change were no outer identity, & use MSCHAPv2)

UANA Wireless Certificates available

I think. Connect to UANA-Setup and go through it's suggested steps. At one point, it will start advising that if you're using Windows you should use Internet Explorer to download a certificate. On that page, there is a link for Firefox/Opera/Other users to get the certificate. In Firefox, click the link, and you will be prompted about a certificate. Examine the certificate, which should come up with a window with some tabs. On one of the tabs, there is a button at the bottom called Export, which can be used to save the certificate. Click that, and you'll get a save dialog box. Clicking the Advanced or browse or whatever button will also show the type of file you're saving, which for Ubuntu needs to be an X509 PEM format. Is this the right certificate? Maybe, but I don't have the time today (or this week) to check, so someone else can.

Also, looks like Intel wireless cards iwl4965 & iwl3945 can't connect with Linux to UANA, due to the particular authentication method in use.

Wireless Access Maps

Map of wireless access at UTas in July 2008's ITR Insight; Sandy Bay on page 5; Newnham on page 6: http://www.utas.edu.au/itr/insight/issues/Insight_Issue3_web0708.pdf

UANA-Setup: Identifying your MAC address on Linux

As part of the UANA-Setup process, you're asked to enter your MAC address. This is the unique identifier for your network hardware.

What is your MAC address? You'll likely have a couple, one for the cable connection and one for wireless.

How do you find the wireless one? Open a terminal (EeePc users click CTRL, ALT and T at the same time, Ubuntu users click Applications > Accessories > Terminal) then type iwconfig and press enter. This will list all the interfaces. The short names on the left are the interface names, and on the right should be whether it's got wireless extensions. If an interface isn't wireless it will appear like this:
eth0 no wireless extensions
If an interface is using wireless, it'll appear like this (followed by more information):
eth1 IEEE 802.11a ESSID:"UANA-Setup"
The above line indicates eth1 is the wireless interface and we're currently connected to UANA-Setup. Now using the interface name for the wireless connection (eth1 in the example above, it could be ath0, eth0, eth1, eth2 or something else) we look up more information by typing:
ifconfig eth1
Replace eth1 with the interface with a wireless connection. It will now display information about that particular interface. You want the MAC address, that's the one prefixed with HWaddr and looks like 31:41:59:26:53:59 (6 pairs of numbers joined by semicolons).
Yay, you have your wireless MAC address.

Using UANA to update Ubuntu - Ubuntu and Proxy Authentication

UTas runs a firewall that blocks direct access to the Internet, except for a few rare cases (that I don't actually know specifically about). This means that everyone uses a proxy service to access Internet resources, other than UTas resources (eg. UTas email).

When using Ubuntu, a proxy server for Gnome applications is set via System > Preferences > Network Proxy (set to manual; use the same proxy for all protocols; HTTP proxy should be proxy.utas.edu.au with port 8080; click Details and enter UTas username & password) however, at UTas it's a little different from using your ISP's proxy server. The UTas proxy service uses authentication ie. your username and password. This wouldn't be bad, except that it doesn't damn well work in Ubuntu (I'm using versions 7.10 and 8.04).

You may be served fairly well by setting this value, but applications like Synaptic Package Manager don't use the authentication part of the proxy settings, which means Ubuntu won't be updated and Add/Remove Applications won't work.

To fix, open Synaptic Package Manager ( System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager ). Once it's open, click Settings > Preferences, then Network, then Manual proxy configuration, then enter proxy.utas.edu.au for both the HTTP & FTP proxies, then click Authentication and enter your UTAS username/password. EDIT: 18th August: Set the proxy port to 8080 .

Now Applications > Add/Remove... will work, along with Synaptic Package Manager.

If anyone would like to comment and list the applications that don't work with proxies with authentication, please do.

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What happens on a default install of 8.04:
Assuming the Network Proxy is set to proxy.utas.edu.au and port 8080, and correct authentication is entered.

• Synaptic Package Manager: Clicking Reload results in a "Could not download all repository indexes" window with a 407 Proxy Authentication Required message for each repository index. Fixed as described above.
• Firefox: On first open, will recognise that authentication is buggered and ask for username and password twice. Once entered, Firefox is fixed, though will re-ask for authentication each time Firefox is re-opened.
• Sound Juicer: Can't load album information. Silent fail. No workaround.
  

UTAS on ASUS eeepc

The _Original_ ASUS eeepc (the one with Linux) doesn't support the UTAS wireless network by default. The network drivers need to be updated, which thankfully has been documented here:

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/wpa_default_xandros

The process requires a few downloads, so it's easier to setup at home first, and then connect later to the UTAS wireless. The wpa_supplicant.conf settings are the same as an earlier post Wireless at Sandy Bay for GNU Linux. If you're truly lazy, you can ignore the CA certificate file (ie. remove the ca_cert line), but it's not particularly a good idea. I'm still not sure how to get the certificate file without using a Windows machine (Update: Try this to get certificates - not sure if it's the right certificate yet).