Connect My Device to WiFi

Summary	Connect your device to WiFi on campus
Author	Maintained by Jeremy Martinez
Help	Get help with this article
Status	Up-to-date for the 2024-2025 school year.

How do I connect to one of the RCS wireless networks?

It is generally easy to connect to our networks from any device that has wireless access. The Table below shows which devices we support and which networks they can use.

Supported Devices Table
			Supported devices:
User Group	Network Name (SSID)	Authentication	iOS	macOS	Windows	Android
All RCS Users	RCS-Guest	Captive Portal
Students	RCS-Community	Domain Credentials

Connect to RCS-Community

For Apple and Windows Devices:

Go to Settings
Go to Wifi
In the list of available wireless networks, click on RCS-Community
Enter your Riverdale username (without @riverdale.edu)
Enter your Riverdale passphrase
Click Connect or Join on your platform to join the network
Accept the certificate by clicking Trust or Connect anyways

For Android devices:

Go to Settings
Choose Network & Internet
Choose Internet
Select RCS-Community from the list of wireless network names
The EAP Method should be PEAP
Leave Phase 2 Authentication as MSCHAPV2
Under CA Certificate choose Use System Certificates. Then, Choose Do not Verify for Online Certificate Status.
For Domain, write riverdale.edu
Enter your username without @riverdale.edu where it says Identity (leave anonymous identity blank)
Enter your Riverdale passphrase on the password line
Click Connect

Connect to RCS-Guest

Guest and visitor information for wireless access

I'm a guest/visitor to RCS, how can I access the wireless network?

Welcome to RCS! Select the RCS-Guest network from the list of available networks and fill out the web form to gain network access.

I have a guest/visitor coming to RCS, how can I arrange wireless access?

The RCS-Guest network is similar to going to Starbucks, just fill out the web form for 48 hours of access. If a longer time is required, please submit a tech request.

On Apple, Android and Windows Devices:

Connect to RCS-Guest in the list of available networks on your device
Wait for the pop-up to appear with a fillable form
Then enter your Full name, email address, and phone number
Check I accept the terms of use after reading them
Click Register
Wait for the pop-up to refresh
- Ignore the password
- Review the Activation Time and Expiration Time
Click Log in
Wait for the registration to complete when you see Please wait while you are logged into the network...
Once the riverdale.edu webpage loads, you can close the popup and continue browsing as usual

What WiFi networks are available, who can use them and what can I do?

Wireless Networks and Supported Services
				Access to:
User Group	Network Name (SSID)	Authentication	Speed/ Bandwidth	Internet	AirPlay	Printing
All RCS Guests	RCS-Guest	Captive Portal	Low
Employees and Students	RCS-Community	WPA2 Enterprise with Domain Credentials	Medium

Which network should I use?

RCS-Community will provide the best experience and bandwidth. They require you to use your RCS domain username and passphrase to connect to a WPA2 Enterprise network.

The RCS-Guest network makes basic wireless access available to guests and members of our community whose devices do not support logins requiring a domain username and passphrase (this is quite rare these days) . The rate limit on these connections will allow checking email and basic web surfing, but other functions may feel very slow.

What does Internet access mean? Can I do ANYTHING I want?

In order to protect you, your computer, other computers, and our network from a variety of security issues, we do put some minor limitations on your access to the Internet. These limitations will not interfere with typical Internet usage, but if you do find that there is an RCS-related service you are unable to use successfully due to wireless network restrictions, please submit a tech support request.

In addition, the total speed that all users at RCS at one time combined is fixed. Sites like YouTube can be very useful for learning, but use up much of the bandwidth, or internet speed, available. Everyone in our community is urged to use their judgment and "think before you stream". If too many users access video at the same time on a wireless network, the internet will get slow for all.

Will I have to go through a proxy or web filter?

Proxy: We use silent proxy technology, so you don't need to configure your computer in any way to access the Internet. This also means that you MUST go through our web filter.

Web filter: All computers, whether a managed, wired computer, your own wireless laptop or other wireless device, have their Internet traffic passed through a web filter. We try to be as unobtrusive, and permissive, as possible, but it is likely that you will encounter a Warn or Block page at some point. If you believe that a web site is being improperly categorized:

Warn Page: Please submit a tech support request.
Block Page: Please submit a tech support request.

We review these requests quickly and will override the filter if warranted.

Where can I access these networks on the Hill and River campuses?

During the late summer of 2015 we completed full upgrade of the WiFi system on the Hill and River campuses in all school buildings. You may find a useful signal in nearby exterior locations, but there are few outdoor access points. If you find weak signal in an RCS building, please submit a tech support request to help us improve the availability of the wireless network.

Something isn't working...

Please see our troubleshooting section if you are having issues accessing the Internet through an RCS wireless network.

I'm interested in the technical details.

Awesome! Our wireless network is running on Aruba Aruba Central managed Instant Access Points. If you connect to one of the WPA2-Enterprise networks, your credentials are passed to a cluster of ClearPass Policy Manager servers that handle RADUIS authentication. After connecting to the appropriate wireless network, all of your network traffic passes through two different firewalls: the Aruba controllers and a FortiGate next generation firewall and web filter. This makes your computer very, very safe at Riverdale! All of your computer's network traffic passes through our FortiGate firewall to monitor and filter your Internet access.