Mac OS X and MSCHAP

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Level 1

125 points

Mac OS X and MSCHAP

I was told today at a hospice that, because their wi-fi used MS-CHAP (as required under HIPAA, they said), I would be unable to connect my MBP running 10.5.6 to their wireless network.

"You need to have MS-CHAP. That's the problem with Apples. They don't support MS-CHAP."

Later, I did some googling and at Wikipedia I found the following statement:

"PEAPv0/EAP-MSCHAPv2 is natively supported in Mac OS X 10.3 and above... PEAPv0/EAP-MSCHAPv2 enjoys universal support and is known as the PEAP standard."

Can someone familiar with this please tell me what questions to ask in order to get connected? I'd like to avoid asking any Mac-specific questions since, ordinarily, that's where the discussion derails. Is it simply a matter of giving a password, after which normal internet protocols like DHCP take over, and it's like being on any other LAN? Or is there more to it than that? I know what CHAP stands for, and it just sounds like "getting through the front gate" to me.

Thanks,
Chap (no relation) Harrison

2.4GHz MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Mar 3, 2009 5:23 PM

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Answer 1

j.v.

Level 5

4,155 points

Mar 7, 2009 9:54 PM in response to Chap Harrison

I've not had to deal with wireless networks employing this, but I did find this -- specific instructions for a specific network so you could look at the various options available in the Mac's setup on your computer and it may give you a feel for the procedure that you will have to follow at the hospice, and what questions you will need to ask them: http://www.utoledo.edu/depts/it/Docs/O&I/O&I_PDF's/MAC OS_X_PEAPSetup.pdf
(I don't know how old this is). (My post here is not displaying the link properly; it doesn't like anything after the apostrophe that is actually part of the link. So you'll have to cut-and-paste because clicking on it won't get you there.)

I also found this post that says that if the server is incorporating an automatic certificate deployment, that it only works with Windows clients, however, the post was dated 2005 so maybe things have changed for Apple clients over the past 3+ years:
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-1538104.php

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