eduroam at SAHMRI

eduroam is a global service enabling staff and students of HE&R to visit participating institutions and connect to their wireless networks.

What is eduroam?

eduroam is short for "education roaming".

eduroam is a global service enabling staff and students of HE&R and related institutions to visit another eduroam participating institution and connect to the visited institution's wireless network automatically, i.e. with zero effort for both user and visited institution.Via eduroam infrastructure provided by SAHMRI, AARNet and global NRENs, SAHMRI enables the user's 'home institution' to authenticate the user remotely. SAHMRI grants local wireless network access to users authenticated via eduroam. If configured correctly, the eduroam user should be able to get a network connection at a visited institution just by opening their laptop or activating their phone or tablet device. The physical locations within SAHMRI providing eduroam access to their networks, allowing visitors from HE&R institutions to access wireless networking as easily as they would on their own campus, are:

  • SAHMRI Building, North Terrace, Adelaide

Trust in eduroam authentication is underpinned by use of a secure technical infrastructure and protocol, and a set of policies to which all eduroam participants are required to comply. More information on eduroam is available from AARNet, the eduroam AU ‘roaming operator’.

eduroam Policy

In participating in eduroam AU, SAHMRI agrees to conform to the eduroam AU Policy for eduroam Service Providers (which in turn means it agrees to comply with Global eduroam Policy for eduroam Service Providers).
What is the user's responsibility in using eduroam?

eduroam AU policy states that users must conform to their home institution's networking Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

What about user privacy?

The eduroam protocol prevents your institutional password from being revealed to any eduroam server other than your home institution eduroam server. So your login password is protected and only known by you and your home institution.

Your username is revealed to the SAHMRI RADIUS server and other eduroam infrastructure servers involved in getting your authentication request from your device to your home institution.

Key information for eduroam users

  • SSID (Network Name): eduroam
  • Wireless Network Connection Protocol: WPA2 Enterprise
  • Data Encryption Method: AES

At the current time, SAHMRI operates as an eduroam “service provider” only. In the future SAHMRI may operate as an identity provider also, meaning SAHMRI staff could access other participating institutions via eduroam.

Who can use eduroam at SAHMRI?

eduroam is available to academics, researchers and students from eduroam participating HE&R and related institutions globally.

How do I use eduroam at SAHMRI?

Note: as an eduroam user, you should have already configured access to eduroam while on your home campus, using the authentication parameters provided by your home institution local eduroam webpage.

Accessing eduroam successfully within SAHMRI requires only that your configured wireless network connection and encryption protocol is compatible. The wireless encryption protocol used by SAHMRI access points is the WiFi standard "WPA2/AES" (also called WPA2 Enterprise).

Note: There is no need to change any of your authentication parameters. These are only relevant to your home institution. If you have successfully configured authentication to eduroam at your home institution, you should be able to access SAHMRI's network via eduroam with no change to your setup.

SAHMRI provides eduroam at the following locations:

  • SAHMRI Building, North Terrace, Adelaide

SAHMRI provides full outbound access with NAT’ed IP addresses (i.e. any servers on those machines will not be accessible externally while connected to the SAHMRI network).

When you're on a SAHMRI campus and connect to eduroam, you may experience difficulty in getting a network connection due to several reasons e.g. an issue with your device configuration, wireless networking, institutional eduroam operability or eduroam infrastructure operability.

If network access issues occur, in the first instance eduroam users should contact their home institution's IT helpdesk to seek support. If this is not feasible, or if the home institution can’t resolve the issue, users may contact the SAHMRI IT support (+61 8 8128 4140, helpdesk@sahmri.com).

If required, your home institution's or SAHMRI eduroam support staff will contact AARNet Pty Ltd for additional assistance.

Eduroam trust between SAHMRI and users’ home institutions (those authenticating their users) is supported by the ability to trace a particular network access event to an authentication of a 'real user' by their home institution.

Home institutions agree to take appropriate action on behalf of SAHMRI in case a user doesn’t comply with SAHMRI’s network Acceptable Use Policy.

In order to provide this traceability, network access transactions via eduroam are logged by SAHMRI, with logs being retained for a period of six months. Access to usage logs is restricted to authorised personnel and authorities as required by the law.

Usage logs may also be used for purposes of service trouble-shooting and user support.