FAQ – eduroam Bhutan

Frequently Asked Questions

(Source: eduroam.org)

WHO RUNS eduroam?

eduroam is a global initiative supported by GÉANT, the National Research and Education networks and individual institutions. Each participating organisation contributes time, manpower and resources to help support the collaborative efforts.

Overall governance of eduroam is provided by the Global eduroam Governance Committee which currently comprises eleven senior representatives of roaming operators in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, North America and Europe. DrukREN is the National Roaming Operator in Bhutan.

I am a student / researcher / professor, can I use eduroam?

As end-user you will only be able to use eduroam if your institution provides electronic identity (e.g. account for network access). In that case you will need to contact your administrator and ask for an account. You (or your network administrator) will have to configure your computer to enable eduroam access.

WHAT DOES eduroam COST?

eduroam is free for its users, there is no charge for eduroam use world-wide. The providers of eduroam hotspots make the service available to benefit all members of the research and education community.

Can a public WiFi provider offer eduroam?

eduroam separates the concepts of authentication (identity providers) and hotspots (service providers) allowing public, commercial or city wifi initiatives to offer eduroam in addition to research and education institutions.

What commercial entities cannot do is become identity providers and offer a service to their customers that will work with eduroam. so any partnership with a commercial wifi service needs to respect that users of this hotspot cannot be charged for accessing the network.

What technology does eduroam use?

In eduroam, communication between the access point and the user’s home institution is based on IEEE 802.1X standard; 802.1X encompasses the use of EAP, the Extensible Authentication Protocol, which allows for different authentication methods. Depending on the type of EAP method used, either a secure tunnel will be established from the user’s computer to his home institution through which the actual authentication information (username/password etc.) will be carried (EAP-TTLS or PEAP), or mutual authentication by public X.509 certificates, which is not vulnerable to eavesdropping, will be used (EAP-TLS). Source: eduroam.org

Is eduroam safe to use?

eduroam is based on the most secure encryption and authentication standards in existence today. Its security by far exceeds typical commercial hotspots. Be aware though that when using the general Internet at an eduroam hotspot, the local site security measures at that hotspot will apply to you as well. For example, the firewall settings at the visited place may be different from those you are used to at home, and as a guest you may have access to fewer services on the Internet than you have at home. Source: eduroam.org

Does eduroam use a captive portal for authentication?

No. Web Portal, Captive Portal or Splash-Screen based authentication mechanisms are not a secure way of accepting eduroam credentials, even if the website is protected by an HTTPS secure connection. The distributed nature of eduroam would mean that many different pages, languages and layouts would be presented to eduroam users making it impossible to distinguish between legitimate and bogus sites (even a consistent layout can be mimicked by an adversary).

eduroam requires the use of 802.1x which provides end-to-end encryption to ensure that your private user credentials are only available to your home institution. The certificate of your home institution is the only point you need to trust regardless of who operates any intermediate infrastructure. Web portals require you to trust their infrastructure as they receive your password in clear text, this breaks the end-to-end encryption tenets of eduroam. Source: eduroam.org