Arch Linux

Sathors

Member

Registered: 2011-02-23

Posts: 56

Connect to the internet at work

Hi all !

so I have a computer running XP at work, and I also have my personal laptop under Archlinux.

I want to connect to the Internet using Archlinux if possible, and if not, understand why !

The internet connection is working on the XP laptop.
It uses a configuration file with the extension .pac in firefox to reach the proxy, and I have access to all the information such as DNS server address, DHCP server address ...
It seems to me that the IP allocation is static, because every time I connect the IP address is the same. Is there a way for me to see if XP uses DHCP to get its address ?

By default if I only plug the ethernet cable into Arch, it doesn't work.
I am able to ping the gateway.
After having added a default gateway using the route command, I am also able to ping the DNS server.
If I do a tracepath to the www, I can see eight hops, and then I get no reply.
I added the proxy address in the environment variable http_proxy.
I changed the MAC address of my Arch laptop to match the one of XP in case they do a filtering on that.

And now I don't have any more ideas to solve my problem, and I don't understand clearly what may be the problem !
I have fairly good knowledge of IP, because I'm currently finishing a master in networks, but I don't really know what are the technologies used in companies to restrict internet access.

Do you have any advice for me, any good reading, any explanations ??

Thank you very much for your help.

Cheers,
Sathors

Linkas

Member

Registered: 2011-12-28

Posts: 26

Re: Connect to the internet at work

Try to add DNS servers to /etc/resolv.conf.
This configuration usually works well:

/etc/resolv.conf:
# OpenDNS servers
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Last edited by Linkas (2012-09-03 10:12:11)

Sathors

Member

Registered: 2011-02-23

Posts: 56

Re: Connect to the internet at work

Thank you Linkas for your help !

So I have tried what you proposed me, but it doesn't seem to work.

If I put the opendns server you provided me with, wget is stuck at resolving domain names.
But I do have the DNS ip address of my company, and when I put it in resolv.conf the dns resolution is working.

So I guess it is an other problem that prevents me from accessing the internet ...

Strike0

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-09-05

Posts: 1,491

Re: Connect to the internet at work

They probably employ some authentication via the proxy (pac), anything from windows domain auth, hardware (like MAC you tried) to a SSL certificate in your XP browser keystore.

You should ask your work place's network admins really. That's easiest and ensures they agree to you using your private equipment in their environment.