eduroam (Education Roaming), is a RADIUS-based infrastructure that uses 802.1X security technology to allow for inter-institutional roaming. If your institution is a member of eduroam, users visiting any other member may log on to the WLAN using the same credentials (username and password) as those at their home institution. Depending on local policies at the visited institutions, eduroam participants may also have additional resources at their disposal. All this with a minimum administrative overhead http://www.eduroam.org.
SOWN has added eduroam access so that academics from around the world can log onto the SOWN network using their academic username and password. Due to the security issues associated with CaptivePortal type systems, eduroam's policy no longer allows the use of a web login system. For this reason, eduroam access is now only available using 802.1x.
All SOWN[at]Home nodes offer an eduroam SSID for use with your academic account. SOWN community accounts, and members of the University of Southampton should use the [SOWN]-8021X or [SOWN]-HOME ssids instead.
SOWN has now completed the roll out of eduroam on all compatible access points. Eduroam authentication provides the same level of access to SOWN as a University account holder. Currently due to the structure of SOWN this means that you receive an IPv4 address which is natted on the 10.12.0.0/15 prefix. IPv6 is globally routable from all nodes no matter on the location in the world of our access point.
Eduroam authentication is performed via our own radius server which all access points (no matter their location) use. In turn the SOWN radius server is peered with the School of ECS's radius server and from there to the University central server, from there to the bigger JRS network etc.
All in all it's quiet a simple concept which relies on the fact that no matter where the nodes get deployed, they require an internet connection and the ability to dial home to become part of the SOWN network. Dialing home is done with an OpenVPN connection from the node.
More info can be discovered by emailing support@sown.org.uk.