Connecting to public wifi hotspots

[Tom H]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 6:00 AM, JD <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why don't you cut to the chase.
> Take your Ubuntu 12.10 (updated as of say 3 weeks ago), to
> a Starbuck's hotspot and see if your FF will display Starbuck's
> login web page. If it does, please do not login. Instead
> break into a Terminal window and see if you can ping or dig.
> If you can, then you have a totally different networking stack
> than on my machine, which is 12.10, with full updates as of 3 weeks ago.
>
> As I already said, the problem I see taking place DOES NOT HAPPEN
> ON WEB SITES THAT DO NOT REQUIRE A LOGIN TO HOTSPOT'S
> PERMISSION PAGE!!!
> IF THIS IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO TELL YOU NM IS NOT THE CULPRIT,
> THERE IS ONLY ONE THING LEFT: FF!!!!

Please don't top post.

I've used 12.10 and FF in Starbucks in London, Paris, Zurich, and Geneva.


> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:53 PM, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> > OK - so now you know that DNS lookups are not working in Linux at this
>> > hotspot.
>> >
>> > - are there nameserver details in /etc/resolv.conf?
>> > - are the nameserver details (if any) coming from the hotspot?
>>
>> Yes! That was my (possibly misexpressed) point earlier. If you don't
>> use the dns servers that the hotspot's dhcp server hands out, you can
>> FF, dig, ping to your heart's content, you won't get any result
>> (unless you're pinging a system on the hotspot's internal network)
>> without first getting to the hotspot's "home page" and accepting
>> whatever it wants you to accept. And getting to the hotspot's "home
>> page" necessitates using the hotspot's dns servers.
>>
>>
>> > - can you ping any of the nameservers?
>> > - can you get an answer back from any of the nameservers? (dig
>> > @nameserver ...)
>>
>> "dig @hotspot-nameserver ..." will very likely be successful in spite
>> of FF failing.