Connecting to public wifi hotspots

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2013-02-18 at 10:57 -0700, JD wrote:
> After the NM declares that it is connected,
> doing nslookup of ANYHTING, times out!
> Doing dig of any web site, times out!
> Opening the browser to go to default home page
> displays the FF error to the effect Server Not Found.

OK - so now you know that DNS lookups are not working in Linux at this
hotspot.

- do you have an IP address on the wireless interface?
- do you have a default route?
- if yes, can you ping the gateway address
- are there nameserver details in /etc/resolv.conf?
- are the nameserver details (if any) coming from the hotspot? 
- can you ping any of the nameservers?
- can you get an answer back from any of the nameservers? (dig
@nameserver ...)

And check all the same things with Windows, to see if you can spot any
difference. Windows has an nslookup program, and "route print" will show
you the routing table. "ipconfig /all" will show you the state of your
interfaces (or use the pointy clicky method).

> This by the way does NOT happen with hotspots that do not
> require agreeing to the hotspot's usage policy in order to
> be connected to the public net.

That's probably because such hotspots have no need for trickery - they
connect you straight to the Internet without any jiggery-pokery.

> So, whatever it is that the Windows version of FF honors,
> it does not happen with the Linux FF.

If your above test results are correct, then this problem has absolutely
nothing at all to do with Firefox, and everything to do with much more
basic mechanisms such as DHCP, name resolution or network connectivity.
I'm not sure why Windows would work where Linux does not; more
investigation is needed.

> By the way, I recall having the same issue with FF when booting Fedora.

That is to be expected - they are both Linux and use the same underlying
mechanisms in the same ways. Again, it is unlikely to have been FF as
such.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://www.biplane.com.au/blog

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