The geteduroam app is designed for two things: to make controlling and enforcing usernames and passwords easier on the mobile device operating systems in a common way, and more importantly, to make transition from a username/password-based eduroam authentication process to a certificate-based process easier and more user-friendly.
Common Issues and Questions:
Unable to find your organisation on geteduroam
The primary reason why you can't find your organisation on the geteduroam app is because your organisation has not signed up to the eduroam CAT system. You can check whether your organisation exists by visiting https://cat.eduroam.org/ and then clicking the 'Click here to download your eduroam installer' button. In the organisation pop up, search for your home organisation. If they are not there, encourage your organisation to sign up to the system. It is free for your organisation, and to sign up, they should contact their eduroam national support helpdesk.
Your organisation may already know about geteduroam, but have something similar to eduroam CAT or geteduroam. Check with your local IT helpdesk whether they do.
Unable to use the app off-line
Unfortunately geteduroam requires an internet connection to be able to do a live search for your organisation. However, newer versions of geteduroam allow you do download the profile file from the Internet using a data connection (or a guest Internet network, please check with your home organisation) for later setup. Download the latest version from your mobile device app store, and the functionality to open a profile file downloaded from eduroam CAT should be available.
You can set up your eduroam connection at home, but please be aware that while it will attempt to connect to the eduroam network, it will fail (because you will most likely not have it at home). You should however then check when you are in a location that has eduroam whether your phone will connect.
Unable to delete the app without 'deleting' eduroam
This is correct. geteduroam will set up the eduroam network for you, but it also keeps an eye on the network. When you uninstall/delete the app, the network profile it installed is also removed, and with it, your eduroam network connection. While this sounds wrong, because geteduroam has an important function (like checking that your certificate for connecting eduroam, if you use one, is still valid), it has to remain on your phone.
Unable to connect to eduroam despite installing the app
The geteduroam app on its own does not provide eduroam connectivity. You must have installed a profile, and the profile has to be correct for your phone to be able to use it (and connect to eduroam). The responsibility for ensuring that the profile is correct lies with your home organisation, so if you are unable to connect, please contact your own organisation's IT helpdesk first to check.
geteduroam associates itself with other file types and functions
Early versions of geteduroam on Android in particular had a faulty MIME type association, which couldn't be fixed after a Google deadline for some versions of Android expired. You can try and sideload (download) a version of geteduroam from APKPure that works for your phone, which may fix this problem.
Why yet another app?
eduroam has been around for 20 years, and over that period of time, mobile phone manufacturers have become better at supporting the technology used by eduroam, something called 'WPA-Enterprise'. Some, like Apple, have made it very simple to connect (but in doing so leaving some security features for WPA Enterprise out of the options), while others, like Android, have gone the opposite way and made the connection options very configurable but also confusing for the end users. Laptop operating systems like Windows buried the settings completely by requiring you to edit the Windows registry!
geteduroam's predecessor, an app called 'eduroam CAT', made connecting and configuring eduroam on Android phones a lot simpler and more straight-forward. geteduroam aims to adhere to that credo, while bringing the security features (like root certificate installation and server certificate validation checks) that secure your username and password just a little bit more, to all operating systems that geteduroam supports.
Can't I just tap on the Wi-Fi network and connect that way?
Technically nothing stops you from doing this, and for many years, this was the way many people connected to eduroam on Apple devices. However, simply tapping on the 'eduroam' network and providing your username and password has several issues:
You have to rely on having typed in your username right. By username, we mean typing in something that looks like an email address: your username, plus the @ sign, plus what's called the realm of your organisation. Without the part on the right-hand side of the @ sign, eduroam doesn't know where you belong, and so it is vitally important to have this. geteduroam allows your organisation to enforce this, so if you only type 'myusername' instead of 'myusername@myuniversity.org', the profile will either add '@myuniversity.org' or ask you to add it.
You have to rely on having typed in your password correctly. The Wi-Fi settings dialogs vary between operating systems. geteduroam consistently allows you to tap/click the 'eye' icon to see or hide your password while you are typing it in. This helps ensure accuracy.
An important feature for making sure you do not give away your username and password to a broken (or compromised) Wi-Fi system is something called server certificate validation. This uses checks specified by your organisation administrators to make sure that before your device sends the password back, it actually made contact with a server that your organisation says is trustworthy. Unfortunately, simply tapping the network and entering credentials does not usually show you details, and requires you to trust a certificate when it pops up the first time. geteduroam makes sure that you a) don't need to trust a pop-up window, and b) your password is not sent to someone who has bad intentions, by using the certificate and the server name(s) specified by your home organisation administrators to check the certificate on your behalf.
Until version 11 of Android, server certificate validation was available, but often instructions to eduroam users was to not validate the certificate. This effectively was a workaround, but it also leaves you, the users, vulnerable to releasing your username and password to people with bad intentions. With Android 12 and later, Google has made requirements stricter, so geteduroam again makes it easier for your home organisation to force server certificate validation without you having to type in a bunch of stuff.
The app won't work and crashes!
This is arguably one of the most frustrating things for end users and we can completely understand why you would be upset. The developers for geteduroam, and several eduroam national operators out in the world, test the app on as many devices as they can, and it's not always possible (because it's a crowd effort). When the app crashes, please document (in an email) what happened, and what version of the app this happened on, and what profile you were using (so, your organisation's name, and if there are multiple profiles, which one you chose), so that the developers can try and diagnose the problem and fix it as soon as possible. The more information we have for the problem, the better we can potentially diagnose and fix the problem!
How to provide information for geteduroam
Please help your IT department (and the geteduroam developers) by providing them with the following kind of information. To take screenshots, press Power and the Home button together on iOS, or press Power and the Volume Down button on Android:
- What device (phone, tablet, laptop) do you use? The make and the model will be very helpful.
- What version of operating system does it run? A screenshot can be very helpful:
On iOS, you can look in the Settings under General, About for the Software Version.
On Android, you can look in the Settings under About phone, Software Information.
On Windows, you should be able to look in the 'Help' menu under 'About' to get more information
On macOS, go to the Apple menu, then choose 'About this Mac'. - Which version of geteduroam are you running?
On Android, go to Settings, then Apps, find 'geteduroam', tap it and scroll to the bottom.
On iOS, go to General, iPhone Storage, search for 'geteduroam' and tap it.
On Windows, it will probably be an executable you had to download. - What did you try and do. Note each step down, or, if you can, take screenshots.
- Send all of this to your helpdesk, or post this to the cat-users mailing list by subscribing.