Connecting to USC Secure Wireless on Linux

Dec 23, 2014
Tested on: Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17, Linux Mint 17.1

USC (Univ. of Southern California) updated its wireless service to have an encrypted and faster connection available to USC faculty, staff, and students with name 'USC Secure Wireless'. Unfortunately for students like me, USC did not document how to use Linux computers with this service.

Following configuration has worked for me to connect to USC Secure Wireless during past couple of months. The basic idea is to use 'WAP2' or 'WAP Enterprise' security and use Protected EAP (PEAP) authentication along with GTC as secondary authentication. Same idea works on Android phones as well.

Create a new connection by right-clicking on 'Network connection' icon in notification area and choosing 'Edit Connections...' It will pop a 'Network connection' window. Click on the 'Add' button on the right side and choose 'Wi-Fi' as connection type. Then follow the settings described in the images below (click on the images to enlarge them). Note that the USC-id must be entered without @usc.edu.



And here is how the connection information looks like after being connected to USC Secure wireless.