Generic advice for roaming wifi?

cfr · 2013-12-07 01:15:47

I just stayed at a hotel which offered free wifi access to guests. When I tried to connect, however, I was unable to do so. Reception smugly told me that "I seemed to be having great difficulty with this" and that I should bring them my device as it was "really very simple" but finally even the hotel admitted they had no clue. (Less than me, I think.)

I was assured this worked great on Windows 7 and iPads.

I've seen threads on not dissimilar topics but I've not found any general solutions. The problem was that I was meant to open a browser and get automatically redirected to a login page. Either on opening the browser (Windows) or on trying to search (iPad). They couldn't tell me the url and the magic failed in Firefox, chromium and Konqueror. I also tried taking my firewall down completely, rebooting etc. No go.

I usually connect using wicd. wicd could see the network fine but saw it as being unsecured. I couldn't find a way for it to connect. It could try, but there was nowhere to put in the login and password so it kept failing to get a connection.

The frustrating thing about this is that I couldn't search for suggestions and try them out because I didn't have a connection. So all I can do is ask for advice in retrospect and for prospective advice for when/if this happens again.

Is it possible to connect to this kind of setup? If so, are there instructions somewhere? And/or anything I should install (while I have a connection) to be prepared (for when I don't)?

jasonwryan · 2013-12-07 02:26:49

The few times I have had to do this I have used wicd-cli and connected to the network (it is unsecured), then opened a browser and generally after a couple of refreshes it loaded the login page. Once I entered the correct token, I was able to browse the interwebs.

Of course, I suspect that the network you are describing is actually a misconfigured one. Over the last three or four years, I have had to do this half a dozen times when travelling and each time it has worked without any real difficulty.

cfr · 2013-12-07 02:55:12

Thanks for the reply. I was using the wicd GUI thingy but it kept getting disconnected so I couldn't really try getting pages while sure I was connected. Does the CLI interface work differently, do you happen to know? If so, I'll definitely give that a go next time as I had no luck with the GUI. (The guy from the hotel kept looking for some network icon thing and I eventually figured out he wanted to see the signal strength but that was perfectly fine - wicd had no trouble at all picking up the network.)

The trouble is when they say it works fine on Windows/Macs, they pretty much wash their hands of you. That it works there proves it must be a failure of the weird OS you are running and no fault on the part of their network configuration. (And maybe they are right - my networking skills are pretty basic.)

Trilby · 2013-12-07 03:01:49

There are many "professionally managed" wireless networks around here by companies with names like "wireless solutions" which is clearly an attempt at humor: a sarcastic reversal of what they actually are. These all use that sort of browser log in. I've found a vast majority of these redirect to the login page if you attempt to go to "google.com". But they will not redirect from any other attempted url's that I've found.

Perhaps they assume that google is everyone's homepage. Or perhaps they don't assume anything and are just clueless. But this works a majority of the time. An exception is at the Barnes and Noble stores: I have to attempt to go to barnesandnoble.com to log in.

As some off-topic humor, a handful of cafe's I've been to have good WPA2 networks, but they broadcast the password in their essid. This is a bit like getting a nice safe, and engraving the combination on the door so you don't forget it.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-12-07 03:05:27)

cfr · 2013-12-07 03:09:52

Thanks. Unfortunately, google.com was one of the sites I explicitly tried.

jasonwryan · 2013-12-07 05:08:52

I've never used the wicd GUI, but I would be surprised if it behaves any differently. My suspicion is that, no matter what you tried, the network authentication has been set up incorrectly and you wouldn't have been able to get in,

I know what you mean about Linux. Once just about any "tech support" person hears that they immediately blurt out, "Fuck, this person knows a shit load more than I do about every aspect of my job. Bail out, bail out now!", which is filtered through Yoyodyne's CustomerWins™ parser to emerge as, "I'm sorry, Sir, but we only support consumer operating systems, goodbye"

tomk · 2013-12-07 08:33:50

Last time I had to do this, I just used wifi-menu, and it worked fine. It created this profile:

Description='Automatically generated profile by wifi-menu'
Interface=wlan0
Connection=wireless
Security=none
ESSID=Lyrath_WiFi
IP=dhcp

and Firefox redirected to the login page.

Strike0 · 2013-12-07 10:27:47

I had similar problems and found that the initial redirect would not work with https sites (as google is now).

Another thing you can check is to have "automatic DNS" enabled in whatever network tool you use to connect. Maybe you have a custom/write protected /etc/resolv.conf (?) and the redirect did not work because their login router's DNS was not among them.

cfr · 2013-12-09 04:14:56

Thanks. resolv.conf definitely wasn't the problem as I switch between wifi networks which need different settings regularly and wicd doesn't have any trouble triggering all the right changes. Right now, for example, it is listing a domain for my ISP and the nameserver is given as the AP on my home LAN. I assume earlier today it would have listed my university network's information. According to the first line of the file it is automatically generated by dhcpcd from wlan0. So I'm sure that wasn't the issue.

I would say I might try the wifi menu strategy but I suspect from jasonwryan's comments that probably nothing would've worked. I did try http as well as https sites, as well.

I actually don't think the people I spoke to thought I knew anything. They seemed more to think I was some sort of imbecile because it was "really very simple", even when it didn't work...

ewaller · 2013-12-09 04:28:58

I have also found that using extensions like "HTTPS Everywhere" wreaks havoc with these HTTP jails. Also, I have found that blocking cookies causes problems with these systems.

cfr · 2013-12-09 04:33:58

ewaller wrote:

I have also found that using extensions like "HTTPS Everywhere" wreaks havoc with these HTTP jails. Also, I have found that blocking cookies causes problems with these systems.

I use this stuff in Firefox but I also tried both Konqueror and chromium in part because I have essentially nothing installed for those beyond the applications themselves. I figured my Firefox stuff might be screwing it up but I thought that a "vanilla" browser should work OK.

bulletmark · 2013-12-09 04:39:47

I've used Linux (mainly Ubuntu because I've only come to Arch very recently) on my laptop for many many years. I travel frequently but have never had any problem connecting through one of these captive portals. If it looks like my initial browser connection is hanging I always explicitly connect to google.com and that has always worked for me to kick up the login/disclaimer portal page.

cfr · 2013-12-09 04:44:42

bulletmark wrote:

I've used Linux (mainly Ubuntu because I've only come to Arch very recently) on my laptop for many many years. I travel frequently but have never had any problem connecting through one of these captive portals. If it looks like my initial browser connection is hanging I always explicitly connect to google.com and that has always worked for me to kick up the login/disclaimer portal page.

While I'm glad it works for you, I don't think this is much help to me since I already explained that I tried this. I appreciate the suggestion, though.

bulletmark · 2013-12-09 04:53:49

cfr wrote:

While I'm glad it works for you, I don't think this is much help to me since I already explained that I tried this. I appreciate the suggestion, though.

My point is that there is nothing inherently wrong with linux networking working with captive portals and thus your experience is something odd local to that network, your machine, etc.

I didn't suggest anything new. Somebody else above already suggested a generic "google.com" fetch often helps. I was just reiterating that comment.

I always use plain networkmanager btw.

BGK · 2013-12-09 15:32:11

I am travelling quite a lot myself and have this issue from time to time.
Usually i just connect my phone (Android) to the wifi, get the magic URL and manually type it in my browser in Arch.
I think once i had to perform a nmap scan to find the correct portal server (they have explicit running services on various ports, chances are you'll find the server pretty fast after a couple of scans). With some luck typing the correct IP address will redirect you to the portal page, if not, use the DNS provided by the local DHCP and try a reverse lookup on this IP and just type the result it in your browser.
If you are still out of luck at this point, the combination of the brand (NIC vendor based on the MAC address), the list of running services and some google search (which might be difficult w/o internet) might give you some hints about the default home page URL of the portal.

Last edited by BGK (2013-12-09 21:39:28)

cfr · 2013-12-10 01:21:53

I don't have a suitable secondary device. I'm not very familiar with nmap. (That is, I've heard of it, know very vaguely what it generally does.) Are there any specific instructions you'd recommend? (If so, I figure I can download them and squirrel them away for future use. I ask because the wiki seems not to have a page on it, I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for and I can't search, try and then search some more because I've no suitable environment for testing.)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-12-07 01:15:47

Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#2 2013-12-07 02:26:49

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#3 2013-12-07 02:55:12

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#4 2013-12-07 03:01:49

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#5 2013-12-07 03:09:52

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#6 2013-12-07 05:08:52

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#7 2013-12-07 08:33:50

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#8 2013-12-07 10:27:47

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#9 2013-12-09 04:14:56

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#10 2013-12-09 04:28:58

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#11 2013-12-09 04:33:58

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#12 2013-12-09 04:39:47

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#13 2013-12-09 04:44:42

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#14 2013-12-09 04:53:49

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#15 2013-12-09 15:32:11

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

#16 2013-12-10 01:21:53

Re: Generic advice for roaming wifi?

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