Zit Seng's Blog

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Configuring N95 WLAN for NUS Wireless

n95-8gb-frontThe N95, N95 8GB and probably other similar Symbian phones work great connecting to the wireless network in NUS. If you want security and avoid the fuss with login through a captive web-portal, configure your device to join the NUS SSID wireless network. It’s more complicated to setup, but you only need to do it once. (Note that I now have a specific guide for the Nokia N97.)

  1. Go to Menu, Tools, Settings, Connections, Access Points.
  2. Click Options, New Access Point.
  3. Enter a descriptive name (e.g. “NUS”) for the Connection name.
  4. Set Data bearer to “Wireless LAN”.
  5. Set the WLAN netw. name to “NUS”.
  6. Set Network status to “Hidden”.
  7. Set WLAN netw. mode to “Infrastructure” (already the default).
  8. Change WLAN security mode to “802.1x”.
  9. Click on WLAN security settings. You will go to a new page.
  10. Set WPA/WPA2 to “EAP” (already the default).
  11. Click on EAP plug-in settings. You will go to a new page.
  12. Ensure that only EAP-PEAP is selected. Select the EAP types, click on Options, then Enable (for EAP-PEAP) and Disable (all others).
  13. Then click on EAP-PEAP. New page again.
  14. Personal certificate can be left as Not defined.
  15. Authority certificate must be set to Thawte Premium Server.
  16. Change User name in use to User defined.
  17. Type your NUSNET domain\userid (e.g. nusstf\comabc) into the User name field.
  18. Change Realm in use to User defined.
  19. Leave Realm blank.
  20. For the next 3 options, Allow PEAPv0 should be Yes, and No for Allow PEAPv1 and Allow PEAPv2.
  21. Press your right arrow (to move to the EAPs tab).
  22. Only EAP-MSCHAPv2 should be enabled (check mark beside the EAP type). By default EAP-SIM and EAP-AKA is enabled. Highlight the EAP type, click Options, then click Enable (for EAP-MSCHAPv2) or Disable (all others).
  23. Click on the EAP-MSCHAPv2 type. New page again.
  24. For User name, enter your NUSNET domain\userid.
  25. Change Prompt password to No.
  26. Enter your password in the Password field.
  27. Click back, enough times to get out of the configuration.

Finally, you should be done with the configuration.

To test, launch your phone’s web browser. When asked to select access point, find the NUS entry in the list and click on it. If you had followed the instructions above to save your password, you should automatically connect to the wireless network now.

Note for other Nokia/Symbian phones: The above has been tested successfully with N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic too, although the exact UI steps vary slightly.

Note for iPhone users: The iPhone 2.0 software is supposed to support 802.1x PEAP as well. The information here might be useful to configure the iPhone. But since I don’t have an iPhone or access to one, I’ve not tried/tested.

34 thoughts on “Configuring N95 WLAN for NUS Wireless

  1. Hi Zit Zeng,

    Apparently, the iPhone/iPod Touch only have WEP,WPA,WPA2, WPA Enterprise, WPA2 Enterprise options. Both the enterprise option only have the username and password option and no additional settings.

  2. Hey I have an nokia n95 . I want to connect my phone on the wlan school . I have ip , dns1 and dns2 , gateway and the ip is dynamic . How can I connect my phone on the wlan connection ?

  3. Hi ZooM. The ‘open’ WLAN network is NUSOPEN. This page describes the NUS SSID which is secure. Username and password are those of your NUSNET account.

  4. 1. thx zit , but I don’t know how to configure the access point : Gateway in specially . I add dns1,dns2 in IPv4 settings (ip is dynamic) .
    2. First I search for wlan networks , my n95 find an wlan the name is LVM2..is not protected but when I start browsing over the internet he sayd : no gateway reply or something like that . I have gateway and dns1,dns2 . (sorry for english but i’m romanian :|)

  5. hi Zit Seng,

    I followed the steps above for Nokia E71 but can’t seem to connect. Error msg is EAP-PEAP authentication failed but I already checked that my username and password is correct. do you know what else could be causing this?

    1. I imagine some of the configuration settings must be wrong. I would suggest to check again the setup carefully. I know there are several E-series phones that were successfully setup, although I can’t remember if there were any E71s specifically.

      1. I am trying on E71 as well .. so far unable to connect πŸ™

        But thanks for the detailed steps, who would have figured such complicated steps!

      2. Now its working on E71 .. the first time Nokia didnt save the wifi settings properly, so had to redo it. THanks a lot!!

  6. I got it working!

    I realised I got this part wrong:
    # For the next 3 options, Allow PEAPv0 should be Yes, and No for Allow PEAPv1 and Allow PEAPv2.

    I thought should put allow Yes for PEAPv2.

    Thanks for the very useful guide πŸ™‚

  7. this is great. i am using an e71 and was previously getting “no gateway reply” continuously. apparently it is an e71 glitch. but this method seems to work for now. thanks a lot!

  8. Hi, I’m a E71 user as well. Followed the steps above. Got the EAP-PEAP authentication failed error. Any idea where went wrong here?

  9. Hi,

    i’m using a Nokia C6. Tried following your instructions but in the end it says it cannot connect to the wireless lan. Can you advise me? Thanks.

    1. I’ve heard the above works for a variety of Symbian based phones. If you’re sure you’ve followed the steps, but still fail to connect… I think you probably need to go find help on campus. πŸ™‚

  10. Thank you! I followed your instructions and got my E5 working.
    One more addition, if you are a nus staff, then you need to add “nusstf\” before you NUSNET id, in step 17 and 24.

    1. Yes, the domain prefix bit is a new requirement after the NUSNET auth got mucked up at the start of this semester.

    2. hi i read thru ur instructions and tried to do it on my e5 but from step 5 onwards Im stumped! Everything doesn’t match! Pls help! Someone who has done it successfully on an e5? Thank u very much!

      1. I know several people with newer/latest Nokia Symbian phones who continue to find these instructions relevant. Yes, some things won’t match up exactly, but they are more or less similarly there. You can try posting in http://answers.comp.nus.edu.sg/forum for some community support. πŸ™‚

        ps: I don’t use a Nokia phone anymore.

  11. I tried bt it’s still not working.Should the domain name and the user name be provided by the GSM service or by our own wish?do I have to use the word “nusstf” in the username category under the EAP-PEAP settings?Do I have to provide my own email id in domain\userid or wht?And wht abt the password?

  12. I tried bt it’s still not working.Should the domain name and the user name be provided by the GSM service or by our own wish?do I have to use the word β€œnusstf” in the username category under the EAP-PEAP settings?Do I have to provide my own email id in domain\userid or wht?And wht abt the password?Can u kindly provide me these instructions for the country India?

    1. These instructions are for students of a university in Singapore. You need to be an enrolled student to make use of the network.

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