Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users.Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might be of interest: http://sourceforge.net/projects/su1x/ Jethro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users.Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might be of interest: http://sourceforge.net/projects/su1x/ Jethro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
So for those using this how many need to use the TTLS supplicant setup? For those that do how do you handle if a user is using a built in supplicant that has profiles for other locations? -- Walter Reynolds University of Michigan On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:07 AM, Gogan, James P go...@email.unc.edu wrote: Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users.Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might be of interest: http://sourceforge.net/projects/su1x/ Jethro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
We use Cloudpath for our EAP-TTLS 802.1x wireless network. We're very pleased with how smoothly it works with virtually all Win and Mac OS variants. It even works with iPhone/iPad and Ubuntu linux. To handle TTLS in Windows we purchased a licensed copy SecureW2 and pre-configured the parameters within Cloudpath. When you're ready to deploy XpressConnect (Cloudpath's product name) you download a web-ready tarball to upload to your server. There's even a standalone CD/USB executable. If you're using SecureW2 (or any other third party helper app such as XSupplicant) you separately upload that binary in the /install directory. XpressConnect auto-detects the OS. If it's a Windows variant it looks for an existing installation of SecureW2. If it's there it'll create a new profile based on your specs. If it's not there XC will install SecureW2 and configure it appropriately. In our configuration XpressConnect ignores third party supplicants even if they are TTLS capable (e.g. Intel Pro Wireless). We configured XC to permanently enable WZC in Windows so that Windows now manages the wireless card, sort of leaving the third part supplicant and all its profiles in the lurch. This is of course the only way SecureW2 will work. I think XC can actually detect and remove third party supplicants but we thought that seemed a little mean in an academic environment. We configured XC to remove our public SSID after a successful migration to our 802.1x network. It even pushes the new profile to t he top of the list. As for users who have active profiles on their third party supp we suggest that they migrate these manually over to Windows. Otherwise they'll be switching wireless managers back and forth when they leave the campus. Not the most elegant solution but this is the price paid for requiring TTLS on Windows. Hope this helps. Mike Michael Dickson 413.545.9639 Network Analyst Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst On 4/22/2010 11:13 AM, Reynolds, Walter wrote: So for those using this how many need to use the TTLS supplicant setup? For those that do how do you handle if a user is using a built in supplicant that has profiles for other locations? -- Walter Reynolds University of Michigan On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:07 AM, Gogan, James Pgo...@email.unc.edu wrote: Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might be of interest: http://sourceforge.net/projects/su1x/ Jethro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
Mike, Would you use XpressConnect if your campus were EAP-PEAP compliant, or would you publish instructions and skip the cost of XpressConnect? In other words, is it so good and makes the life so easy (help desk calls) that even with a EAP-PEAP system you would spend the money Philippe Univ. of TN On Apr 22, 2010, at 11:49 AM, Michael Dickson wrote: We use Cloudpath for our EAP-TTLS 802.1x wireless network. We're very pleased with how smoothly it works with virtually all Win and Mac OS variants. It even works with iPhone/iPad and Ubuntu linux. To handle TTLS in Windows we purchased a licensed copy SecureW2 and pre-configured the parameters within Cloudpath. When you're ready to deploy XpressConnect (Cloudpath's product name) you download a web- ready tarball to upload to your server. There's even a standalone CD/USB executable. If you're using SecureW2 (or any other third party helper app such as XSupplicant) you separately upload that binary in the /install directory. XpressConnect auto-detects the OS. If it's a Windows variant it looks for an existing installation of SecureW2. If it's there it'll create a new profile based on your specs. If it's not there XC will install SecureW2 and configure it appropriately. In our configuration XpressConnect ignores third party supplicants even if they are TTLS capable (e.g. Intel Pro Wireless). We configured XC to permanently enable WZC in Windows so that Windows now manages the wireless card, sort of leaving the third part supplicant and all its profiles in the lurch. This is of course the only way SecureW2 will work. I think XC can actually detect and remove third party supplicants but we thought that seemed a little mean in an academic environment. We configured XC to remove our public SSID after a successful migration to our 802.1x network. It even pushes the new profile to t he top of the list. As for users who have active profiles on their third party supp we suggest that they migrate these manually over to Windows. Otherwise they'll be switching wireless managers back and forth when they leave the campus. Not the most elegant solution but this is the price paid for requiring TTLS on Windows. Hope this helps. Mike Michael Dickson 413.545.9639 Network Analyst Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst On 4/22/2010 11:13 AM, Reynolds, Walter wrote: So for those using this how many need to use the TTLS supplicant setup? For those that do how do you handle if a user is using a built in supplicant that has profiles for other locations? -- Walter Reynolds University of Michigan On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:07 AM, Gogan, James Pgo...@email.unc.edu wrote: Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
Just want to confirm as last time I checked it did remove some third party wireless managers because they did not play nice. You are saying that they do not have to delete any now, correct? Walt Reynolds University of Michigan (734) 615-9438 On Apr 22, 2010, at 11:49 AM, Michael Dickson mdick...@nic.umass.edu wrote: We use Cloudpath for our EAP-TTLS 802.1x wireless network. We're very pleased with how smoothly it works with virtually all Win and Mac OS variants. It even works with iPhone/iPad and Ubuntu linux. To handle TTLS in Windows we purchased a licensed copy SecureW2 and pre-configured the parameters within Cloudpath. When you're ready to deploy XpressConnect (Cloudpath's product name) you download a web-ready tarball to upload to your server. There's even a standalone CD/USB executable. If you're using SecureW2 (or any other third party helper app such as XSupplicant) you separately upload that binary in the /install directory. XpressConnect auto-detects the OS. If it's a Windows variant it looks for an existing installation of SecureW2. If it's there it'll create a new profile based on your specs. If it's not there XC will install SecureW2 and configure it appropriately. In our configuration XpressConnect ignores third party supplicants even if they are TTLS capable (e.g. Intel Pro Wireless). We configured XC to permanently enable WZC in Windows so that Windows now manages the wireless card, sort of leaving the third part supplicant and all its profiles in the lurch. This is of course the only way SecureW2 will work. I think XC can actually detect and remove third party supplicants but we thought that seemed a little mean in an academic environment. We configured XC to remove our public SSID after a successful migration to our 802.1x network. It even pushes the new profile to t he top of the list. As for users who have active profiles on their third party supp we suggest that they migrate these manually over to Windows. Otherwise they'll be switching wireless managers back and forth when they leave the campus. Not the most elegant solution but this is the price paid for requiring TTLS on Windows. Hope this helps. Mike Michael Dickson 413.545.9639 Network Analyst Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst On 4/22/2010 11:13 AM, Reynolds, Walter wrote: So for those using this how many need to use the TTLS supplicant setup? For those that do how do you handle if a user is using a built in supplicant that has profiles for other locations? -- Walter Reynolds University of Michigan On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:07 AM, Gogan, James Pgo...@email.unc.edu wrote: Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
The current Cloudpath build allows us to choose to remove or let be any third party supplicants. Mike Michael Dickson 413.545.9639 Network Analyst Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst On 4/22/2010 12:48 PM, Reynolds, Walter wrote: Just want to confirm as last time I checked it did remove some third party wireless managers because they did not play nice. You are saying that they do not have to delete any now, correct? Walt Reynolds University of Michigan (734) 615-9438 On Apr 22, 2010, at 11:49 AM, Michael Dicksonmdick...@nic.umass.edu wrote: We use Cloudpath for our EAP-TTLS 802.1x wireless network. We're very pleased with how smoothly it works with virtually all Win and Mac OS variants. It even works with iPhone/iPad and Ubuntu linux. To handle TTLS in Windows we purchased a licensed copy SecureW2 and pre-configured the parameters within Cloudpath. When you're ready to deploy XpressConnect (Cloudpath's product name) you download a web-ready tarball to upload to your server. There's even a standalone CD/USB executable. If you're using SecureW2 (or any other third party helper app such as XSupplicant) you separately upload that binary in the /install directory. XpressConnect auto-detects the OS. If it's a Windows variant it looks for an existing installation of SecureW2. If it's there it'll create a new profile based on your specs. If it's not there XC will install SecureW2 and configure it appropriately. In our configuration XpressConnect ignores third party supplicants even if they are TTLS capable (e.g. Intel Pro Wireless). We configured XC to permanently enable WZC in Windows so that Windows now manages the wireless card, sort of leaving the third part supplicant and all its profiles in the lurch. This is of course the only way SecureW2 will work. I think XC can actually detect and remove third party supplicants but we thought that seemed a little mean in an academic environment. We configured XC to remove our public SSID after a successful migration to our 802.1x network. It even pushes the new profile to t he top of the list. As for users who have active profiles on their third party supp we suggest that they migrate these manually over to Windows. Otherwise they'll be switching wireless managers back and forth when they leave the campus. Not the most elegant solution but this is the price paid for requiring TTLS on Windows. Hope this helps. Mike Michael Dickson 413.545.9639 Network Analyst Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst On 4/22/2010 11:13 AM, Reynolds, Walter wrote: So for those using this how many need to use the TTLS supplicant setup? For those that do how do you handle if a user is using a built in supplicant that has profiles for other locations? -- Walter Reynolds University of Michigan On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:07 AM, Gogan, James Pgo...@email.unc.edu wrote: Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
We had the same argument here at our campus. Some people thought that we could just publish the steps to setup the wireless network on out website and save the cost of XpressConnect. We chose to go with XpressConnect and have been very happy with it. It was money well spent. Our help desk staff are able to get wireless setups done quickly saving a lot of time. Students could even setup the wireless from home or pickup a cd with the XpressConnect installer on it. Philippe Hanset wrote: Mike, Would you use XpressConnect if your campus were EAP-PEAP compliant, or would you publish instructions and skip the cost of XpressConnect? In other words, is it so good and makes the life so easy (help desk calls) that even with a EAP-PEAP system you would spend the money Philippe Univ. of TN On Apr 22, 2010, at 11:49 AM, Michael Dickson wrote: We use Cloudpath for our EAP-TTLS 802.1x wireless network. We're very pleased with how smoothly it works with virtually all Win and Mac OS variants. It even works with iPhone/iPad and Ubuntu linux. To handle TTLS in Windows we purchased a licensed copy SecureW2 and pre-configured the parameters within Cloudpath. When you're ready to deploy XpressConnect (Cloudpath's product name) you download a web-ready tarball to upload to your server. There's even a standalone CD/USB executable. If you're using SecureW2 (or any other third party helper app such as XSupplicant) you separately upload that binary in the /install directory. XpressConnect auto-detects the OS. If it's a Windows variant it looks for an existing installation of SecureW2. If it's there it'll create a new profile based on your specs. If it's not there XC will install SecureW2 and configure it appropriately. In our configuration XpressConnect ignores third party supplicants even if they are TTLS capable (e.g. Intel Pro Wireless). We configured XC to permanently enable WZC in Windows so that Windows now manages the wireless card, sort of leaving the third part supplicant and all its profiles in the lurch. This is of course the only way SecureW2 will work. I think XC can actually detect and remove third party supplicants but we thought that seemed a little mean in an academic environment. We configured XC to remove our public SSID after a successful migration to our 802.1x network. It even pushes the new profile to t he top of the list. As for users who have active profiles on their third party supp we suggest that they migrate these manually over to Windows. Otherwise they'll be switching wireless managers back and forth when they leave the campus. Not the most elegant solution but this is the price paid for requiring TTLS on Windows. Hope this helps. Mike Michael Dickson 413.545.9639 Network Analyst Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst On 4/22/2010 11:13 AM, Reynolds, Walter wrote: So for those using this how many need to use the TTLS supplicant setup? For those that do how do you handle if a user is using a built in supplicant that has profiles for other locations? -- Walter Reynolds University of Michigan On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:07 AM, Gogan, James Pgo...@email.unc.edu wrote: Like others, I'll throw in my $.02 here and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might be of interest: http://sourceforge.net/projects/su1x/ Jethro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/ . ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/ . -- Heriot-Watt University is a Scottish charity registered under charity number SC000278. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
and indicate that not just something similar but, in fact, XpressConnect from CloudPath has INDEED been very beneficial here on our campus. With the diversity of desktop configurations and systems that we have, the seamless configuration of Windows PCs, Macs, Ubuntu systems, iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads with a single common-interface tool (and great support, by the way) for consistent deployment of 802.1X/WPA2-Enterprise cannot be beat. Great product - classic example of you get what you pay for. -- Jim Gogan Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Jethro R Binks Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:57 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect On Fri, 16 Apr 2010, Kevin Ehlers wrote: We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. To: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:49:58 + (GMT) Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Julian Y. Koh wrote: At 10:38 AM -0600 3/9/10, Williams, Mr. Michael wrote: We have tutorials available for our users, but our helpdesk folks still have to spend a lot of time manually configuring the wireless supplicant for some of our less tech savvy users. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Here at NU, our Technology Support Services coded up a Windows utility that we use for this purpose. http://www.it.northwestern.edu/oncampus/wireless/wireless-connections/ Here's another tool that might be of interest: http://sourceforge.net/projects/su1x/ Jethro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jethro R Binks Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect
The only competitors we've been able to find in the past involves purchasing and deploying supplicants for each client. Why not just use the CloudPath product itself? The other competitors are the OS companies, ie Apple and Microsoft. They seem to be getting better and better at figuring out how to auto-config when they first connect to the network. Pete M. -Original Message- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:wireless-...@listserv.educause.edu] On Behalf Of Kevin Ehlers Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 1:26 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Alternatives to XpressConnect -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi Everyone, We're looking at deploying WPA/WPA2 and we think that something similar to XpressConnect from CloudPath would be very beneficial. However, in searching I have been unable to determine if there are any vendors offering a similar service. Does anyone know of a competitor to CloudPath in this area? Our current options are 1) writing our own application + all of the benefits and drawbacks that go with a homegrown solution, and 2) a vendor supported tool to configure client's machines. Any suggestions or alternatives are welcome. Thanks, - -- Kevin Ehlers Network Engineer University of Oregon -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkvInagACgkQ0l216NgIDryOTgCeJYfA6geDg9y2KxYIUNopuyGk HNwAoI9mg+x5cr8qmPfnU1ueRYiTsVTe =cYRh -END PGP SIGNATURE- ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
