ServiceWi-Fi via eduroam

The central Wi-Fi access for members and guests of the University

Encrypted Wi-Fi access via eduroam (short for: education roaming) is available in most Heidelberg University buildings as well as in many locations on campus and around the city. eduroam can also be used to access the internet at many participating educational and research institutions worldwide without the need to create a new account.

At Heidelberg University, eduroam is available to visitors from other educational and research institutions, as long as their home institution participates in the eduroam system.

Target group

  • Members and associates of the University (with a Uni ID or project number)
  • External members (whose home institution uses eduroam)

Use

University member and associates

  • Encrypted, high-speed Wi-Fi access on campus and at facilities in the eduroam network worldwide.

External members

  • Convenient access to the internet when visiting Heidelberg University without any additional configuration.

Access and requirements

The Computing Centre recommends setting up eduroam as the default WLAN access on your devices. To do this, you can use the eduroam Configuration Assistant Tool (CAT), or the geteduroam app, which are available for most common operating systems.

A small tip: To download the tool, you can use the open wireless network WLAN UNI-WEBACCESS, which allows you to access the internet through an automatic login portal (Captive Portal) in your browser. For end-to-end encryption of your data on foreign networks, please also make use of the URZ's VPN service.
To use eduroam, you will need a configuration file. You can download the required file from the linked website cat.eduroam.org. Download the file corresponding to your operating system and perform the installation. During the installation you will need to enter your user data, after which you should be able to connect without any problems.

Please note that special apps are necessary to use eduroam on mobile and tablet operating systems:

  • For Android 10 and below, the app “eduroamCAT”
  • For Android 10 and over, the app “geteduroam”
  • For iOS either the certificate file from the website cat.eduroam.org (errors may occur with this option) or the app "geteduroam".

To make a connection, you will need to enter a username and password.

  • As a user from Heidelberg University: For your username, use a combination of your Uni ID (xy123) or project number plus "@uni-heidelberg.de“, for example, xy123(at)uni-heidelberg.de - replacing (at) with @. As the password, use the password corresponding to your Uni ID or project number.
  • For external users: Please consult your home institution's eduroam documentation to find out the composition of your username. It generally follows the pattern your-ID(at)home-institution.xy - replacing (at) with @. For the password, use the password corresponding to your account associated with your home institution.

Should you experience problems with logging in to the Heidelberg University eduroam network, please contact the IT Service.

Technical information

The eduroam network at the University is secured with WPA2-Enterprise, i.e. communication between access point and device is encrypted so that others in the area cannot view your network activity.

Heidelberg users who use eduroam at external institutions must establish an additional VPN connection to the University's data network, as internal encryption is only available up to the access point.