Connecting to Wifi in Public

mutaphore · 2014-12-19 18:48:08

Hi, total newb here. I'm not sure if this topic has been addressed already, but googling around didn't come up with any relate results. My question is, when you're at some public place such as a Starbucks or library and you want to connect to their wifi network, how do you do it? These networks don't need a password, on my mac I just simply connect to it and a separate window pops up allowing me to confirm connecting to it. However, these are designated as WPA2 type networks. When I follow the guides to connect with wifi-menu, it asks me to put in password, but I don't have one? How do you go about connecting to these types of networks?

Thanks for helping out!

-m

Trilby · 2014-12-19 19:06:55

I gather that on your mac you had previously entered (and saved) those passwords. You cannot connect to a password secured network without the password, regardless of what OS you are using.

At cafes that allow public access to the network you can ask the staff, or just look around: there is likely a note on a wall somewhere with the network name and password.

If you are trying to connect to secured networks without permission what you are doing is wrong.

mutaphore · 2014-12-19 20:49:07

Thanks for the response. What I mean is that when I connect to their wifi, it doesn't ask me for any authentication information and I could go online, what type of wifi security is that? (On OSX it shows up as WPA2 Personal).

If you go into a Starbucks and try connecting to their network, usually its named like "attwifi" or something like that. When I connect to it in OSX, I just get a popup window with Starbucks website and confirm to log in by accepting their terms and conditions. No password entry required. So how do I go about connecting to that type of wifi network without seeing a popup? (still in command line stage of my installation)

Trilby · 2014-12-19 20:57:53

That is an open network, just with web authorization required to access the internet. (Network != Internet)

For those you'd connect like any open network, then just open a text-mode bowser (elinks, lynx, w3m, ...) and go to any url, you should be redirected to the login page. Unfortunately, some poorly managed networks expect that every browser just opens to google.com and they only redirect that url - so that seems to be the safest approach. (Worse yet, until they recently fixed it, the local Barnes and Noble only redirected barnesandnoble.com, everything else failed).

mutaphore · 2014-12-19 21:34:05

I see, good to know the difference

Another noob question: by connect like any open network, do you mean using wifi-menu? I'm not aware of any other methods to connect to wifi right now. If I try to connect to their network it asks for password which I don't have, and using elinks to connect to www.google.com just gives "Host not found"? BTW I'm still just running out of the ISO on a usb stick right now and trying to get internet access

Trilby · 2014-12-19 21:52:51

There are many alternative methods of managing wireless networks. Wifi-menu is one (but I've just never used it). All of them are summarized here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless

If wifi-menu is saying it needs a password, then it is not an open network. You'll need the password from whoever set up the network. You may be able to connect to similar networks on a mac without a password, but have you connected to that same network without a password? Are you sure they haven't recently added a password?

What is the output of `iwlist scan`?

mutaphore · 2014-12-20 02:28:24

So I ended up going to a personal wifi to do install to save the hassle. Thanks for the excellent help!

Chuck Arch Linux · 2014-12-20 13:40:57

mutaphore wrote:

I'm not aware of any other methods to connect to wifi right now.

Personnaly, I'm using

wpa_gui

to scan and see all surrounding wifi information.

or you can use the iw command

iw dev yournetworkadaptor scan

misterbrian · 2017-10-21 19:15:45

I had this issue recently. I'm using i3 and didn't have any GUI for wifi settings (that I knew of at the time). wifi-menu didn't work for connecting to Starbucks wifi, but there is a CLI tool for network manager called nmcli that should already be installed (I think it is part of NetworkManager). Run the following to view networks:

nmcli d wifi list

and then connect to a network with the following:

nmcli dev wifi connect Google\ Starbucks

jasonwryan · 2017-10-21 19:21:51

Please don't necrobump, especially with information that is readily available in the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … bumping.22

Closing

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-19 18:48:08

Connecting to Wifi in Public

#2 2014-12-19 19:06:55

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#3 2014-12-19 20:49:07

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#4 2014-12-19 20:57:53

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#5 2014-12-19 21:34:05

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#6 2014-12-19 21:52:51

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#7 2014-12-20 02:28:24

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#8 2014-12-20 13:40:57

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#9 2017-10-21 19:15:45

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

#10 2017-10-21 19:21:51

Re: Connecting to Wifi in Public

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