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JRS Hot News - July 2010

Advisory - broadcast of eduroam SSID at non-operational sites - with the aim of eliminating the dissatisfaction of users who see an eduroam SSID at sites where JRS is in the process of being implemented, but where an operational service is not yet working, the widespread broadcast of 'eduroam' will be restricted; with effect from January. Full details of announcement.

New promotional material available - the promo material web page has been substantially updated and now includes an amusing animated video explaining what eduroam is to new users. This should be popular with Freshers this Autumn. You'll also find a range of ideas for promoting eduroam to your users throughout the campus; drinks coaster, stickers, help cards and more.

June News

New eduroam sites 'type of service offered' table now complete - the UK Sites Map UK web page has been updated to include a table of the type of service being offered at participants in the UK. Users are now able to see at a glance whether an organisation offers an operational 'Home and Visited' service or is working towards a service or has Home/Visited only status. All service types are appropriately colour coded. This removes the confusion that an operational service is available at a site simply because it is listed as participating in the JRS.

New release of the SU1X Windows 802.1X configuration deployment tool - a number of new features have been added to the SU1X software making it even more valuable to JRS administrators. The new features include support for certificate installation and complete automation of PEAP configuration requiring zero user intervention. Also included is SSID removal and priority setting together with WPA2 compatibility check with fallback to WPA. Full details

Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland announces Home service - students and staff at BioSS can now roam to other eduroam sites and gain authenticated access to eduroam networks. There are now 77 organisations in the UK offering operational seduroam services.

Bangor University announces Visited service - hot on the heels of announcing a Home service for their own staff and students earlier this month, Bangor has announced an operational Visited service too. The wireless network includes 270 access points, allowing extensive coverage at the campus. The total of organisations offering operational eduroam services is now 76.

Recent joiner University of Gloucestershire now has an operational eduroam service - staff and students at Gloucesterhire and visitors to the Park campus can now use the service where available.

Scottish Crop Research Institue now has an operational JRS eduroam service - visitors to and staff/students at the insitute can now make use of eduroam. This further extends the impressively wide availability of eduroam in the major population centres throughout Scotland.

Aston University joins JRS - we are pleased to welcome the Aston University to JRS. The total number of registered organisations is now 118.

May News

NRPS Performance Improvement - the National RADIUS proxy servers (NRPS) realm handling logic has now been updated to eliminate authentication loops which had previously triggered the NRPS protection traffic limiter.

Authentication loops could previously have arisen when an organisation's RADIUS server (ORPS) incorrectly sent an access-request to the NRPS for a user who belonged to the ORPS's own realm. The ORPS should have handled such a request itself rather than having passed it up to the NRPS. The consequence of this was that NRPS would correctly return the request back to the organisation's RADIUS server, which then sent it back again to the NRPS so perpetuating an authentication loop.

Such loops were very dangerous for the whole JRS infrastructure, which is why traffic rate limiting drop/block logic was originally implemented.

Now the NRPS will reject access-requests if they come from an ORPS which should handle the request itself. This means that the drop/block traffic limiter, which had led to problems in certain situations (eg. large conference events) can be removed. It also means that at sites that have incorrectly configured RADIUS servers, users who enter non-standard format usernames (eg. use upper-case characters) will find that their authentication attempts will fail. Organisations should therefore ensure that their ORPS are correctly configured - and can pass the JRS Q.A. Test.

University of Gloucestershire joins JRS - we are pleased to welcome the University of Gloucestershire to JRS. The total number of registered organisations is now 117.

Carmarthenshire College's eduroam service has become operational - the college now offers a Home (IdP) service for their staff and students. This brings the total of organisations offering an operational eduroam service in the UK to 73.

Previously Published JRS News (follow this link to the archive)

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Key Facts about JRS

• The JANET Roaming service provides eduroam in the UK(*) which is a federated service that enables JANET connected organisations to offer high quality secure network services for visitors from other eduroam-enabled organisations - without the need for guest account management, saving IT Support workload.
  (* There are now 118 registered UK organisations Map of JRS locations).

• Authenticated logon services can be provided over Wi-Fi, wired connection and from designated guest workstations - giving full access over JANET to other JANET-connected organisations and the Internet.

• Access to the national JRS infrastructure and the JANET JRS support service is free of charge allowing the service to be offered to guests free of charge. Participating organisations must implement RADIUS but in many cases organisations which already have 802.1X infrastructure can provide a service at nil additional expense, otherwise the only cost is for a RADIUS server and integration.

• Users log on at ANY full-service eduroam network using own username and password, the same as on their home network, for all sites they visit – without having to refer to the IT department of the visited site.

• Organistations may offer eduroam as a 'Home' and/or 'Visited' service. With a Home service, users can gain authentication at other eduroam sites they might visit (ie the Home site acts as an identity provider). Visited service sites provide an eduroam guest network that supports users visiting from organisations that provide a Home service. The idea of such a flexible approach is to be as inclusive as possible and to allow organisations to implement the type of service that suits their policies and local infrastructure/technical expertise.

• All eduroam-connected users (visitors or local users) experience securely authenticated straightforward access to full JANET network services - giving access to the Internet, home organisation networks via VPN, web mail etc., and permitted resources on the local eduroam network.

• The JANET service forms part of the eduroam federation which includes participants in many other countries – extending usability of the service throughout Europe(zoomable map) and around the world.

Why implement JANET Roaming - is it for my organisation?

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