I agree 100% that Cloudpath is the way to go. But, in all things IT there are trade-offs. To use Cloudpath means that users are required to use the native Windows supplicant- no Intel ProSet utility and the like, so you barter ease of support and consistency for a less feature-rich wireless utility.
-Lee Lee H. Badman Wireless/Network Engineer Information Technology and Services Adjunct Instructor, iSchool Syracuse University 315 443-3003 ________________________________ From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Methven, Peter J Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 11:49 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup We use a product "XpressConnect" made by http://www.cloudpathnetworks.com/ which automates this for a range of devices. I had gone down the route of creating a system in house which students could run which copied an XML file into windows Vista to setup the secure wireless network. It worked, but students who had windows XP or MAC were never happy. It was also becoming a full time job tracking all the new and unusual wireless clients that students were installing onto their machine, often without even realising they were to then program these to be disabled etc. We've found XpressConnect has vastly reduced helpdesk calls, and those who do need further help it is almost always issues around incorrect wireless drivers or "wireless card switches" set to "off" etc. If you would like some further details drop me an email on [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> or have a look at the system running at http://network-help.hw.ac.uk/xpressconnect (It can be deployed onto a webserver, cd, flash drive etc.) Many Thanks Peter Mr Peter Methven, Network Specialist University Information and Computing Services (UICS) Allen McTernan Building, Edinburgh Campus Tel: 0131 451 3516 For IT support queries or requests, please email [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> or phone ext 4045, with full details of your query or request and your contact details. http://www.hw.ac.uk/uics From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Williams, Mr. Michael Sent: 09 March 2010 16:39 To: [email protected] Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Automating WPA Setup Hello, We are currently moving away from open wireless access to requiring our users to configure their wireless supplicant for WPA/WPA2. 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? I know you can manually import and export the connection profile (.xml file), but I am looking for a version that the user can download from our website, something like a setup/exe file. Thank you Mike v/r Michael M. Williams Network Systems Analyst Information Technology Services Tarleton State University 201st St. Felix Str. Box T-0220 Stephenville, TX Tel: (254) 968-1850 Fax: (254) 968-9393 [email protected] ********** 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/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
