Option 5: Activating BlackBerry devices over an enterprise Wi-Fi network
Users can activate Wi-Fi® enabled BlackBerry® devices over an enterprise Wi-Fi network in environments that have the following characteristics:
- BlackBerry devices can connect to the enterprise Wi-Fi network but cannot connect to the BlackBerry® Infrastructure.
- Users did not install BlackBerry® Desktop Manager on their computers and cannot access BlackBerry® Web Desktop Manager.
- You want to deploy and activate a large number of BlackBerry devices.
To activate BlackBerry devices over the enterprise Wi-Fi network, you must configure the BlackBerry Router as an SMTP client (also known as a Mail User Agent). As an SMTP client, the BlackBerry Router communicates with an SMTP server, that sends an ETP message to the user. The ETP message is the email message that the BlackBerry Router sends to the user’s mailbox during the activation process.
You can configure the BlackBerry Router to act as a gateway for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network and as a gateway for other network traffic such as email messages, data, or calendar synchronization, or to act only as a gateway for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network. If you choose to configure the BlackBerry Router only as a gateway for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network, you must configure the BlackBerry Router as part of a chain of BlackBerry Router instances and make sure that one or more BlackBerry Router instances in the chain can act as a gateway for other network traffic.
For more information about Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry devices, see the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Feature and Technical Overview.
Prerequisites: Configuring a BlackBerry Router for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network
- On the computer that you installed the BlackBerry® Router, or on a remote computer, configure an SMTP service that the BlackBerry Router can use. For more information, see the documentation for the Windows Server®.
- To restrict the BlackBerry Router so that it acts only as a gateway for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi® network, on a computer that does not host a BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, install a BlackBerry Router whose only purpose is to provide a connection to Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry devices over the enterprise Wi-Fi network. Configure the BlackBerry Router as part of a chain of BlackBerry Router instances and make sure that one or more BlackBerry Router instances in the chain can act as a gateway for other network traffic such as email messages, data, or calendar synchronization.
- Verify that the wireless access points can connect to the BlackBerry Router that you configured for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network.
- Verify that each BlackBerry Enterprise Server can connect to a BlackBerry Router that you configured for BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network.
- Create a user account and activation password on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server for each new BlackBerry device.
Configure a BlackBerry Router to permit BlackBerry device activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi network
- On the computer that hosts the BlackBerry® Router, on the taskbar, click Start > Programs > BlackBerry Enterprise Server > BlackBerry Server Configuration.
- On the OTA WIFI Activation tab, select the Permit wireless activation in your WLAN environment check box.
- Optionally, to restrict the BlackBerry Router so that it acts as a gateway for wireless activations over the enterprise Wi-Fi® network and not as a gateway for other network traffic such as email messages, data, or calendar synchronization, select the Prevent all serial bypass traffic through this router except WLAN activations check box. Only restrict the BlackBerry Router if you configured more than one BlackBerry Router instance.
- To specify how the BlackBerry Router
locates the SMTP server, in the Activation Gateway Settings section, select one of the following options:
- To permit the BlackBerry Router to determine which SMTP server it uses for ETP traffic based on the mail exchange record of the host domain, select Use MX Lookup to obtain SMTP server.
- To provide the SMTP server name and port number for the BlackBerry Router, select Explicitly provide SMTP server name and port. Type the server name and the server port number for the SMTP server.
- If the SMTP server requires authentication, specify the SMTP login name and SMTP password.
- In the From address for ETP messages field, type the email address that you want to use as the From address. The ETP message is the email message that the BlackBerry Router sends to the users' mailboxes during the activation process.
- Click Apply.
- Click OK.
- In the Windows® Services, restart the BlackBerry Router.
Activate a Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry device
- On the BlackBerry device, in the device options, click Advanced Options.
- Click Enterprise Activation.
- Type the activation email address.
- Type the activation password.
- In the Activation Server Address field, type the IP address for the BlackBerry Router that the BlackBerry device can use to activate over the enterprise Wi-Fi network.
- In the menu, click Activate.
- For more information, see the user guide for the BlackBerry device.
- To view the activation status, in the BlackBerry Administration Service, on the Wireless > View activations page, search for the user account. Confirm that the activation is successful.