1 LinuxCampusNetwork

1.1 Wireless connection

Campus does not really document WiFi connection settings for Linux/Unix at all:
https://it.mst.edu/services/wireless/mst/

Follow these steps to do so:

  1. Make sure you have networkmanager managing your wireless connection (this is standard for 98% of desktop environments in Linux).
  2. Register your MAC address with campus:
    1. Open your terminal, type the command: ip --color address
    2. In the output, look for your wireless card, often something like wl***
    3. Notice it’s link/ether address, you will need that below
    4. Sign in as instructed here https://it.mst.edu/services/device-registration/ and register the MAC address from above.
  3. Click on the neworkmanager icon (on your title bar in Gnome, KDE, XFCE, etc), and click to connect to either MST or MST-WPA-N network.
  4. Accept defaults, and on the Wi-Fi Security tab, choose settings as follows:
    LinuxCampusNetwork/mst-wpa-n.png

1.2 OpenVPN

OpenVPN is actually pretty good, but campus documents the VPN functionality for Windows and Mac, but doesn’t really do so sufficiently, simply, or accurately for Linux/Unix.

1.2.1 Install

  1. Download the OpenVPN config file from the Windows or Mac example here: https://it.mst.edu/services/vpn/
    Note: Do NOT follow the instructions for Ubuntu Linux at the above link.

After installation, you may either use 1) GUI networkmanager, or 2) Terminal to connect.

1.2.2 Option 1: GUI networkmanager (easiest)

  1. Right click on the network-manager icon, click “edit connections”
  2. Click the “+” button (for adding a new connection)
  3. Under “choose a connection type”, choose “import saved VPN configuration” (which you downloaded in step 0). Pick that file.
  4. Type in campus username (with or without @umsystem) and password in their relevant fields, click ok.
  5. Just click on the VPN in the network-manager menu, check the box, and you’re done!
  6. Check your IP address to be sure you’re connected: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+my+ip+address

Note: if you get certificate errors, use a more up-to-date distribution and/or version of OpenVPN.

1.2.3 Option 2: Terminal (if you are remote or headless)

Note: to stay connected to the VPN, run this in the background, and/or leave the terminal open.

#!/bin/bash

sudo openvpn --config openvpn-mst-edu.ovpn