Not able to connect to wireless "hotspots"

der_11 · 09-10-2007, 11:36 PM

I have set up my laptop to connect using the ipw2200 with WPA to my home network and it works great. But, I have started school again and my campus has wireless all over the place, but I cannot connect to it.

It is a open network which anyone can connect to, but requires your student ID and password once you open a web browser.

So, when I boot up it normally tries to connect to my home network first, then any essid it can find. However, when I booted up at school, my laptop froze when trying to connect to the school network.

inet.d

Code:

# Config information for eth1:
IFNAME[1]="eth1"
IPADDR[1]=""
NETMASK[1]=""
USE_DHCP[1]="yes"
DHCP_HOSTNAME[1]=""
WLAN_WPA[1]="wpa_supplicant"
WLAN_WPADRIVER[1]="wext"

rc.wireless.conf

Code:

## NOTE : Comment out the following five lines to activate the samples below ...
## --------- START SECTION TO REMOVE -----------
## Pick up any Access Point, should work on most 802.11 cards
*)
    INFO="Any ESSID"
    ESSID="any"
    ;;
## ---------- END SECTION TO REMOVE ------------

Everything else is commented out in both files.

Is there some sort of wireless manager I can use on startup instead?

If it makes a difference I have acpi=off because my wireless, sound, and usb devices don't work without that off.

Hopefully I can get this resolved since my laptop is useless at school right now.

owenjh · 09-11-2007, 09:55 AM

Try to see if you can use iwconfig to connect to your school network? That should be your first step.

Should go something like this:

Code:

iwconfig ethX essid any
iwconfig ethX enc off
dhcpcd ethX

BCarey · 09-11-2007, 10:47 AM

Do you have a stanza in your wpa_supplicant.conf for any essid with no key management?

Brian

der_11 · 09-11-2007, 12:14 PM

I only have the default entry provided at the bottom and my personal home network in my wpa_supplicant.conf

Could I just add an entry for my school since I know the essid? Like so:

Code:

network={
ssid="BCIT"
key_mgmt=NONE
}

BCarey · 09-11-2007, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by der_11

I only have the default entry provided at the bottom and my personal home network in my wpa_supplicant.conf

Could I just add an entry for my school since I know the essid? Like so:

Code:

network={
ssid="BCIT"
key_mgmt=NONE
}

You could, but it should also work with the ssid="any".

You should try connecting manually, as already suggested. You can also run wpa_supplicant manually with the -d option to see what it is doing. Does "iwlist eth1 scanning" show your school network?

Brian

der_11 · 09-11-2007, 08:57 PM

That's a problem since when I try and boot it hangs when it tries to connect to my schools network. Which means I cannot login, therefore cannot afford to be testing a different setting everyday.

dracolich · 09-13-2007, 02:41 PM

Try commenting the settings in inet.d so it doesn't attempt to configure when booting, then try to connect manually. If that works you might prefer to make a small shell script to activate your connection depending on where you are after the computer is started.

#!/bin/bash

case $1
home)
dhclient wlan0
iwconfig wlan0 wpa_supplicant ...

school)
dhclient wlan0

esac

Of course this is just an example. I made something similar because I was collecting access points all over the place.

der_11 · 09-13-2007, 07:45 PM

Okay that sounds like it should work....

I have never actually written any shell script so far in Linux. Where would I place it so it runs when I login?

I don't know the syntax exactly so would my script be something like this:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
case "House"
dhclient eth1
iwconfig eth1 wpa_supplicant -Dwext -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

case "BCIT"
dhclient eth1

esac

dracolich · 09-14-2007, 07:41 AM

A shell script such as this would have to be run manually from the console or an xterm window, because you need to supply a parameter to tell it where you are so that it configures eth1 appropriately. If it works, that's cool. If not, it didn't hurt anything to try and you learned something about scripting. Also if it works it only takes a couple of times using it for it to become second nature.

It's actually a short version of what I use on my desktop and laptop. Mine has gotten quite complex because I have different usb wifi adapters for the desktop and different pcmcia ones for the laptop. And as I find more access points for the laptop I add them to the script.

Whatever you decide for the filename will be the name of the command. It's a plain text file so you can create it with any text editor. It can be kept in your home directory and run from there. The only syntax problems I see are:

1. You forgot case $1 in before the actual cases. This is how the script knows to accept a parameter. The parameter, as you define, is either House or BCIT.

2. "House" and "BCIT" should be written as House) and BCIT)

3. There has to be a ;; at the end of each case section

I haven't wep or wpa so I don't know about the syntax for it. I would add this little bit _after_ the BCIT section.

case *)
echo "usage: wlan [House|BCIT]"
exit 1
;;

This is assuming the script is called wlan. This means that anything other than House or BCIT simply prints the usage line and then stops. So if it's in your home directory, after you login, before starting X or from an xterm simply type

wlan House

or

wlan BCIT

If you get any errors (I don't think you would) you may need to run it with root permission using su -. Mine has to run with su because I set everything static instead of dhcp.

Ace1970 · 09-14-2007, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by der_11

Is there some sort of wireless manager I can use on startup instead?

If you run KDE, KInternet is a handy little app to manage wireless connections. Blows away KNetwork Manager in the wireless dept. if you ask me.

dennisk · 09-14-2007, 10:17 AM

Quote:

If you run KDE, KInternet is a handy little app to manage wireless connections.

Except that Kinternet isn't installed in Slackware 12.0.

Have you tried kwifimanager which is installed?

Dennisk

dracolich · 09-14-2007, 10:30 AM

I think the OP is using Fedora, not Slackware, because the posted interface settings are from inet.d and not rc.inet1.conf.

der_11 · 09-14-2007, 07:10 PM

No, I'm using Slackware 12.0. Good news is that I was connected at my school today. I just commented out all the settings in the wireless.rc and set my eth1 dhcp to yes, which got me connected.

I have been playing with the Kwifimanager but it doesn't seem to offer and WPA settings. There is a section for executing a script on connect and I tried to put etc/wpa_supplicant.conf in there but that did not work.

dracolich · 09-15-2007, 08:55 AM

That is good news. And thanks for clearing up any distro confusion. I think I tried kwifimanager once but was thoroughly unimpressed. IMO, gui apps for network configuration aren't reliable or informative enough. All I need is ifconfig, iwconfig and xterm.

I know little-to-nothing about wpa, but if that .conf file isn't an executable script that would be why it didn't work. You could try to use part of the script that you started earlier.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
iwconfig eth1 wpa_supplicant -Dwext -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Save it as whatever name you want then run chmod +x on it to make it executable and point the "execute on connect" field to it.

Although wpa is better than wep, it's still hackable. In my home network I use MAC address filtering. If your nic's MAC address isn't in the router's list of allowed devices you can't connect to my router.

Alien Bob · 09-15-2007, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dracolich

Although wpa is better than wep, it's still hackable. In my home network I use MAC address filtering. If your nic's MAC address isn't in the router's list of allowed devices you can't connect to my router.

WPA is only hackable using dictionary attack. If you use a not-easily guessable passphrase to generate your key, then your WPA encryption is virtually unbreakable.
And remember, spoofing a MAC address is a possible attack vector too.

Eric