A pilot eduroam service at CERN

Eduroam is a secure, worldwide roaming Wi-Fi access service developed for the international research and education community. It allows people from participating institutions to obtain an Internet connection when visiting other participating institutions by simply opening their laptop.

A pilot eduroam service has been available in IT for some months. Now this pilot service will be extended to most parts of the CERN site from early January. Introduction of this pilot service brings two advantages:

• CERN users who register with the eduroam service here at CERN will have easy and quick access to Wi-Fi services at many other academic institutions across Europe and beyond;
   
• People visiting CERN from other eduroam institutes will be able to connect to the Wi-Fi network at CERN without waiting for a network connection request to be approved.

Being a eduroam user obviously has advantages but, like many computing services, eduroam provides a way for malicious people to steal passwords (for example, by setting up their own Wi-Fi access point advertising itself as a eduroam service). Because of this, the pilot eduroam service uses certificates to identify CERN users. NEVER USE YOUR CERN PASSWORD TO CONNECT TO EDUROAM.

Using certificates can be a little complicated if you are not used to this but, once installed on your device, your certificate will ensure easy access to eduroam for five years.

If you are a CERN user, please follow the instructions to connect to the eduroam service at CERN. Once this has been done, connection to any eduroam service outside CERN should be automatic. But remember never to use your CERN password to connect: if you are asked for a password please disconnect immediately. Note that your first connection to eduroam may take a little time, especially if you don't already have a certificate. If you need to use eduroam outside CERN, get started now: don't wait until you are on the shuttle to the airport!

Instructions for visitors on how to use eduroam at CERN are also available here. Note that, unlike many other sites, CERN provides eduroam visitors with full access to the CERN intranet, just like CERN personnel and other visitors. This means that the connection procedure may be a little different to that for visitors at other sites - and, just as for the normal visitor computer registration process, may require a computer to be rebooted. Once visitors are connected to eduroam, they can then use the normal CERN Wi-Fi network in areas where eduroam is not yet available, for example in the CERN hostels.

In the event of any problems with the eduroam service at CERN, please contact the Service Desk (by e-mail: service-desk@cern.ch; by telephone: 77777; or via the service portal); CERN users experiencing problems connecting to eduroam at sites elsewhere should also contact the CERN Service Desk.