No DHCP offers received when trying to connect to an Open wireless network
 

Hi, I'm a new user. I'm trying to connect to an open wifi network and when I try to request the IP address with "dhclient" command i get no DHCP offers from the AP. When I try to connect to AP with "iwconfig wlan0 <AP bssid>" command and then try to check the connection with "iwconfig wlan0" command, the output says "not connected to AP". The wireless card works, and I can connect to this network on Windows. I've red this could be simply due to the eccessive distance from the AP. Is this the case, or what?

What kind of wireless chipset does the computer have? Some of them in some distros require a little extra work to get functioning in Linux.

Running the command lspci (list pci in a terminal window should answer that question; post the results for the wireless here. Note that the brand of wireless card may or may not indicate what chipset is inside that card.

Result of lspci: 08:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61).
I'm on Backtrack 4 live distro, airodump can see the networks, but still I can't associate to the open one.

I was able to find a thread on the Ubuntu forums that might help, even though it does refer to an older version of Ubuntu:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1118935

It does seem to be a rather unusual problem. A web search turned up little.

Can you connect to an unsecured network, as at a coffee shop or something?

I can, but not using Backtrack, only using Windows. I checked out your link, and it seems like the guy can't use at all his card, instead I can see all the networks, but simply can't to be associated to them, even the opened ones. I guessed it was just a distance issue, but I can connect to the same network in Windows. Iwlist scan get nothing, but airodump is able to see all the networks.

If you are indoors and more than a hundred feet or so from the source, it could easily be distance-related.

This article seems to explain it pretty well:

http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/w.../wifirange.htm

Thank frank!