OS X and WPA Enterprise what a PITA…

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We have a very robust 8 Access point Cisco wireless implementation.

Using 8 1130AG Series AP’s and the ever popular WLSE.

Our wireless network is broken up into two segments (vlans) one ‘public’ is protected by WPA-Personal with a pre-shared key. This is the network for guests and visitors. It provides access to the Internet only. No back end routes to our corporate network.

The other network is secured by WPA Enterprise, using AD authentication through the WLSE and Microsoft IAS to get it done.

  • This works just fine and dandy for Windows XP and *mostly* works for Vista.
  • We recently got a trusted cert for the WLSE which mean we no longer have to manually go in and turn off certificate validation.
  • Even though this is a legit, unchained cert, it still doesn’t validate, although you can still connect with the ‘Validate Certificate’ option checked. Go figure.

Our problem is specifically with Mac OS X specifically.

We have multiple Macs, all running 10.4.10 at the moment, and WPA-Enterprise connectivity is pretty much hit or miss…

In some cases it works just as it should, in others, not at all, in some after the laptop sleeps, it ‘appears’ to reconnect but there’s not real network connection there.

Airport *thinks* it’s connected but you can’t go anywhere.

I’ve been beating my brains in the last two days working on this and found this quote on the net:

“Making WPA2 work requires the exact right combination of hardware, driver, supplicant, operating system and astrological convergence. The fact that it’s listed on the certification page means that it can be made to work with WPA2 under some circumstances, not that it’s straightforward, easy, or works on all platforms and it’s even worse on Mac OS X.”

Apparently WPA2 wasn’t even an option in 10.4.3 unless you did it all by hand with a bunch of command line magic.

Unfortunately I’m pointing the finger at Apple for not having reliable, consistent software/drivers to handle this. But that’s nothing new. It’s clear Steve doesn’t use WPA Enterprise or it would work :)

Vista still has some issues but they are more centered around the ‘trust factor’ and the certificates. In their hell bent approach to make sure things are ‘trusted and secure’ they are a little too anal. But at least when it connects, it connects, it doesn’t pretend too. :)

  • We have a Rev A 15″ intel Mac Book Pro that refuses to connect to the WPA Enterprise network.
  • We have one that won’t reconnect after waking up no matter what you do.
  • We have others that are just somewhat flakey regardless.

Unfortunately I can’t duplicate the issue with either of the Macs I have access too to figure this out.

If you have any wisdom to share I’m all ears.

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