Work laptop needs WPA2 password - what is that?

It is the password needed for whichever wifi network you are trying to connect to.

If you are at home it is your home wifi network password.

If you are at school it is the school's wifi password.

If you are at a coffee shop it is the coffee shop's wifi password.

If you are are at a library it is the library's wifi password.

etc.

Some background:

WPA2 is a type of Wi-Fi security. There have been four main types to date:

• WEP – can be broken in less than a minute
• WPA – uses transitional encryption (TKIP); now considered insecure and obsolete
• WPA2 ("WPA revision 2")
• WPA3 ("WPA version 3")

Although WPA3 is the latest Wi-Fi security standard, WPA2 and WPA3 are both still in widespread use. Both use a type of encryption (AES – Advanced Encryption Standard) developed by the U.S. Government.

Security features when connecting to wireless networks - Apple Support

laurenrose101 wrote:

Just to clarify, that means I would have to log in with a school password? I’ll try the password they gave me for the laptop in just a second but if not, could it be some sort of admin password they have set? It just seems odd to me that I need their password for my wifi - I seem to be the only teacher who has this issue 😅

Wi-Fi networks can be set up with a pre-shared key to access the Wi-Fi. This ad-hoc setup is used in most homes, coffee shops, restaurants, and in many small businesses and organizations. One password gets shared with everybody using that network (for a home, restaurant, library, whatever), or maybe there are several locally-appropriate parallel networks (SSIDs) present with unique passwords, such as home networks for parents and for kids, or school networks for staff, students, and guests, or whatever the local network needs. (Using QR codes can work great for passwords here too, but that’s a discussion for another place and time.)

Wi-Fi (and wired) networks can also be set up with enterprise security. Enterprise security means you have to log into the Wi-Fi (or wired) network with your own IT-issued credentials, rather than with shared credentials. This usually involves individually authenticating yourself to a user database stored on a local directory server, or stored in a hosted service such as Microsoft Entra. Related keywords here include 802.1X and RADIUS.

Wi-Fi networks can also be set up with no password, though that is becoming less common in recent years.

In a school or mid-to-moderate-to-larger organization, I’d lean toward using an enterprise configuration, as students and staff come and go, and the more authorized people with a password, the more unauthorized people will also have that password, and the harder the password change gets. As an ad-hoc network grows in users, it basically becomes an open network.

How your network is set up is a local decision, and is a local design. If your IT doesn’t know how the Wi-Fi is set up, that’s not really an issue we can help with. Well, not without providing us remote access credentials ([evil laugh])

We might be able to tell more with a screenshot of the Wi-Fi prompt maybe, but only with any sensitive info from the prompt expunged.

WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) is a level of security for a Wi-Fi network. An organization can put a profile on a device that requires that level of security to be allowed to connect to a network.

Basically, it means that to use the computer on your home WiFi, you need to set up the network to use WPA2 (likely the newer WPA3 would work). How you do that will depend on your WiFi router, a google search should provide instructions. You may need to change your password to comply with a WPA2 requirements.

Hmmm, you seem to be getting a lot of technically sound, but maybe not user-friendly answers. So let's try to break it down - and I'll also ask a couple of questions while doing it.

First, as BobTheFisherman said, you log onto any wifi network with the password for that network. You mention that you get this error message on your home wifi, but not your school wifi or phone hotspot.

• Question - when do you get this error message? Are you trying to join your home network and entering your network password, then getting this error message as a response? Or, does it come up even before you try to log in?
• Question, other than your school wifi and your hotspot, have you tried (or better yet, succeeded) in joining any other wifi network, such as at a coffee shop?
• Question, do you know the configuration and setting of your home wifi, and are you able to access them and change them? If not, who can (ISP, condo/apartment management, spouse/partner/parent/roommate)?

Second, since this is a work computer, it is probably centrally managed by your school's (or school board's) IT department. Which is it? You mentioned that your local tech support person "didn't know" what was going on - but are they actually the one managing this computer?

• If they are managing it, then "don't know" really isn't a good enough response, since MDM management isn't exactly entry-level work. If they aren't managing it, then you probably need the people that are.

Third, are there any other hoops you normally have to jump through to connect when you are not using the school's wifi? For example, a corporate VPN service like Cisco AnyConnect?

• As MrHoffman noted, many corporate systems use enterprise security solutions. Certain ones, like Cisco, can include policies related to having up to date antivirus, minimum levels of wifi security on networks you connect to, and a host of other things. Something like this could be the source of the error message, if your home wifi security isn't set to a strong enough version.

WPA2 is the Wi-Fi network security being used with this Wi-Fi, and the password is the network password you've or the school has set for the Wi-Fi.

Happens to the best of us. Glad to hear it got sorted out.