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#1 2012-11-13 22:34:04

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Hi all,

I'm trying to use an Acer Aspire One netbook with Arch at school to work on coding and what-not. My school finished installing Cisco wireless hubs, and I've heard that in order to connect to the network, you must enter a username and password into a web browser. The problem is, when I try to connect to the network via netcfg's wireless-menu, netcfg fails to connect to it. I have no idea where to go from here.

If there's any kind of files you'd like to see or any tests you'd want me to run, please tell me.

Thanks

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#2 2012-11-13 23:37:50

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,442
Website

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

I don't use network manager, but my university has a similar web-login system.

None of the network tools I've used have had any problems though.  The network tools just bring up the connection and get and IP address.  They should work fine to connect to the local (university) network, you'll just need to log in through a browser before you can access internet connections (email, websites, etc).

If network manager is failing to connect, I'd suspect it may be a different problem.

Have you tried the manual connection steps?


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#3 2012-11-13 23:51:19

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Trilby wrote:

I don't use network manager, but my university has a similar web-login system.

None of the network tools I've used have had any problems though.  The network tools just bring up the connection and get and IP address.  They should work fine to connect to the local (university) network, you'll just need to log in through a browser before you can access internet connections (email, websites, etc).

If network manager is failing to connect, I'd suspect it may be a different problem.

Have you tried the manual connection steps?

I'm using netcfg, not Network Manager. They're different, right?

I can try Network Manager and its manual steps tomorrow and report back.

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#4 2012-11-13 23:59:31

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,442
Website

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Oops, I misread - but in either case my point is the same.

Just go with manual methods first to get more information about which step is failing.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#5 2012-11-15 19:18:13

felixculpa
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2012-06-12
Posts: 252

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

I am guessing your school uses "wpa-eap" for authentication. I used to have the same problem as you. You can actually configure your "wireless school profile file" with settings so you can connect & authenticate,  without first entering a browser.

Here is my settings located in /etc/network.d/<profile>:

CONNECTION='wireless'
INTERFACE=wlan0
SECURITY='wpa-configsection'
IP='dhcp'
DHCP_TIMEOUT="60"
CONFIGSECTION=
         ssid="<ssid>"
         key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
         eap=PEAP
         group=CCMP
         pairwise=CCMP
         anonymous_identity="anonymous"
         identity="<login name/ID>"
         password="<password>"
         priority=1
         phase2="none"'

I hacked this together from a page I found elsewhere on the internet, and it works for me.

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#6 2012-11-15 21:05:55

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

felixculpa wrote:

I am guessing your school uses "wpa-eap" for authentication. I used to have the same problem as you. You can actually configure your "wireless school profile file" with settings so you can connect & authenticate,  without first entering a browser.

Here is my settings located in /etc/network.d/<profile>:

CONNECTION='wireless'
INTERFACE=wlan0
SECURITY='wpa-configsection'
IP='dhcp'
DHCP_TIMEOUT="60"
CONFIGSECTION=
         ssid="<ssid>"
         key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
         eap=PEAP
         group=CCMP
         pairwise=CCMP
         anonymous_identity="anonymous"
         identity="<login name/ID>"
         password="<password>"
         priority=1
         phase2="none"'

I hacked this together from a page I found elsewhere on the internet, and it works for me.

Sounds great! Is this for netcfg, network manager, or wicd, or all?

I'll have to try this when I get my netbook FIXED, the screen has a blue tint currently (oh the irony...). Hardware problem.

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#7 2012-11-15 21:16:36

Šaran
Member
From: Bosnia
Registered: 2011-09-03
Posts: 407

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

That is netcfg profile.

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#8 2012-11-15 21:39:46

felixculpa
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2012-06-12
Posts: 252

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Šaran wrote:

That is netcfg profile.

Correct. If this works, don't forget to prepend the title with [Solved]

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#9 2012-11-15 22:02:02

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

felixculpa wrote:
Šaran wrote:

That is netcfg profile.

Correct. If this works, don't forget to prepend the title with [Solved]

I won't be able to test this for a bit, so it might not have [Solved] for a while.

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#10 2012-12-13 14:03:02

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

felixculpa wrote:

Here is my settings located in /etc/network.d/<profile>:

I'm reopening this thread (bumping I guess) because I tried this profile, but unfortunately it does not connect to the network. I get a WPA authentication failure from netcfg.
I changed the ssid, username, and password, and deleted the extra ' trailing from the file which seemed to cause errors. Still, no luck.

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#11 2012-12-13 15:42:39

maxdub432
Member
Registered: 2010-10-06
Posts: 5

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

This might be totally out of left field, but have you tried disabling TCP window scaling?
When I first heard about the problem I thought it only kept people from making outside connectons, but I brought an Arch / Win 7 laptop to school and while Win 7 worked fine, I couldn't get an IP from my campus' wireless routers at all on the Arch side until I turned window scaling off; afterwards everything worked perfectly.
Ever since friends at two other schools started using Arch and had exactly the same problem (only at school), I've thought it might be unusually common with campus wireless networks.

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#12 2012-12-14 00:43:51

felixculpa
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2012-06-12
Posts: 252

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Mindstormscreator wrote:
felixculpa wrote:

Here is my settings located in /etc/network.d/<profile>:

I'm reopening this thread (bumping I guess) because I tried this profile, but unfortunately it does not connect to the network. I get a WPA authentication failure from netcfg.
I changed the ssid, username, and password, and deleted the extra ' trailing from the file which seemed to cause errors. Still, no luck.

I double checked my file and I made a mistake in my post, there is a leading ' symbol right after CONFIGSECTION=

I am guessing that the entire config section needs to be enclosed in a pair of inverted commas/quotation marks for the profile to work. That makes intuitive sense to me. I will put it to the test tomorrow on campus.

Last edited by felixculpa (2012-12-14 01:19:14)

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#13 2012-12-14 23:15:58

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Just tried the modification to the config file with and without the window scaling thing too, and still, no luck.

Maybe my username and password are just incorrect, it just says WPA Authentication Failure. Sigh.

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#14 2012-12-15 03:00:07

felixculpa
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2012-06-12
Posts: 252

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Another guess here...are you replacing the "<password>" and other fields with brackets with your password like so "password" and not "<password>" ? I am thinking maybe you have a syntax error somewhere.

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#15 2012-12-15 06:12:21

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Here's my exact file, with the username and password changed (but their lengths remain the same):

CONNECTION='wireless'
INTERFACE=wlan0
SECURITY='wpa-configsection'
IP='dhcp'
DHCP_TIMEOUT="60"
CONFIGSECTION='
         ssid="PSDStudentOne"
         key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
         eap=PEAP
         group=CCMP
         pairwise=CCMP
         anonymous_identity="anonymous"
         identity="alnvb"
         password="6703"
         priority=1
         phase2="none"'

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#16 2012-12-16 02:15:47

felixculpa
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2012-06-12
Posts: 252

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Mindstormscreator wrote:

Here's my exact file, with the username and password changed (but their lengths remain the same):

CONNECTION='wireless'
INTERFACE=wlan0
SECURITY='wpa-configsection'
IP='dhcp'
DHCP_TIMEOUT="60"
CONFIGSECTION='
         ssid="PSDStudentOne"
         key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
         eap=PEAP
         group=CCMP
         pairwise=CCMP
         anonymous_identity="anonymous"
         identity="alnvb"
         password="6703"
         priority=1
         phase2="none"'

Only thing that comes to mind now is that one of the variables in CONFIGSECTION is not correct for your school wifi, perhaps the eap setting is wrong as there are several types? I don't know what kind of network your campus uses, their key_mgmt may be different or they may have a phase2 authentication system in place.

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#17 2012-12-16 03:02:21

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Let us try a different tack.  What is the output of sudo iwlist scan  ?? I want to gather some information to walk you through connecting by hand.


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#18 2012-12-17 23:03:12

Mindstormscreator
Member
Registered: 2012-07-01
Posts: 186

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

sudo iwlist scan

Although I'm starting to think that the only issue is that it won't accept my specific user ID and password. I tried using graphical Network Manager in Fedora and it did prompt me for a username and password, but it didn't accept them.

I guess that Netcfg config file works then, I'll have to find out what I'm supposed to be entering.

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#19 2012-12-18 04:26:53

felixculpa
Member
From: Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2012-06-12
Posts: 252

Re: Netcfg cannot connect to browser-verification network (at school)

Mindstormscreator wrote:

sudo iwlist scan

Although I'm starting to think that the only issue is that it won't accept my specific user ID and password. I tried using graphical Network Manager in Fedora and it did prompt me for a username and password, but it didn't accept them.

I guess that Netcfg config file works then, I'll have to find out what I'm supposed to be entering.

Your output indicates that the group setting under CONFIGSECTION should be TKIP and the pairwise section should read TKIP CCMP. That is just what I noticed right away. Also the Authentication Suites in the output shows PSK, making me doubt your university is using WPA2-Enterprise like mine does.

Edit: in the example profiles the wireless-wpa-configsection is an example for universities and shows that in the phase2 section it should read "auth=PAP"' and not "none"'. It also shows the eap setting should be set to TTLS.

Try these settings after figuring out your password, as it sounds like it has expired. Good luck.

Last edited by felixculpa (2012-12-18 07:36:53)

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