VIII. PC Setup

The individual configuration steps on each client depend on the RADIUS server used for 802.1X authentication and its certificate configuration. A RADIUS server that supplies a certificate which has been signed by a trusted 3rd party, such as a Windows RADIUS server with a signed certificate installed, will often work for RADIUS authentication without the client needing to be re-configured.

A RADIUS server with a self-signed certificate, such as the Vigor access point internal RADIUS server, requires some additional configuration of the Windows wireless client settings to accept the self-signed certificate.

---

This guide will show how to connect a Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 computer to a wireless network that's secured with WPA2/802.1X security, using the Vigor access point internal RADIUS server to authenticate.

---

Go to the Start Menu and type "network and sharing" into the search box as shown, click the Network and Sharing Center item. This will open the Network and Sharing Center control panel.

---

Click Set up a new connection or network to start the manual wireless connection wizard.

---

Select Manually connect to a wireless network and click Next.

---

Set the SSID of the wireless network in the Network name field.

Set the Security type to WPA2-Enterprise.

The Encryption type will set to AES automatically and the Security Key is entered at a later stage of the setup.

Click Next to continue.

---

Click Change connection settings to continue.

---

This will pop-up the properties for the wireless network connection, click the Security tab:

---

Set the Network authentication method to Microsoft: Protected EAP (PEAP) and click Settings:

---

In the Protected EAP Properties, Untick "Verify the server's identity...".

Make sure the Authentication Method is set to Secured password (EAP-MSCHAP v2) and click the Configure button.

In the EAP-MSCHAPv2 Properties, untick the option to automatically send the Windows logon details and click OK for that pop-up. Click OK to close the Protected EAP Properties window.

---

From the Security tab of the wireless network properties, which should still be open, click the Advanced settings button.

Tick Specify authentication mode and set that to User authentication, click Save Credentials and enter the username and password used for the 802.1x authentication.

---

Go to the 802.11 settings tab of the Advanced settings window, make sure that PMK caching is enabled.

Click OK on the Advanced settings window. Click OK on the properties of the wireless network connection.

---

This should now have the wireless network setup wizard visible, click Close to complete the setup.

---

The wireless connection should now connect once it's available. Alternatively it can be accessed from the Connect to a Network option in the Network and Sharing center.

---

How do you rate this article?