If you are using the Ubuntu operating system, view our Connect Your Ubuntu Computer to WVU's Wi-Fi article.
This guide assumes that you have some proficiency with Linux administrative tasks and have a working wireless card installed.
WVU students, faculty, and staff should connect to the WVU.Encrypted network. Your first step, and your fallback if you cannot authenticate successfully to the WVU.Encrypted network, should be to try connecting to WVU.Guest to rule out problems with your wireless card and Login account. You should be able to associate with the insecure network with no special configuration and then open a web browser which will automatically be directed to a sign-on page.
If you are able to connect to WVU.Guest without trouble, you'll need to run either Xsupplicant or wpa_supplicant to connect to WVU.Encrypted.
How to run wpa_supplicant
Many distributions include wpa_supplicant. Learn more about connecting and installing at the wpa_supplicant Linux manual page. You can also review the wpa_supplicant readme file and documentation.
You'll need to make a wpa_supplicant.conf file in your etc directory, consisting of the following:
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant |
The terminal command to activate the supplicant will look something like:
sudo wpa_supplicant -Bw -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0
If you don't have the necessary root certificate, you can download it here.
Some users may find that they need to disable and then re-enable their wireless NIC after activating the supplicant, in order to get things running. Other users will find various issues related to their specific hardware or drivers, or other problems. Regretfully, due to the vast number of widely differing permutations of hardware, driver, and OS configuration, the ITS Service Desk cannot commit to supporting troublesome Linux installations. You may find some assistance at the Wireless LAN resources for Linux page, and the overall Linux community should be able to offer support with most configurations.