Re: Connecting to hotel wireless networks

[Brian Morrison <bdm fenrir org uk>]

Tambet Ingo wrote:
> On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 5:21 PM, Michael Duvall <michael duvall ccur com> wrote:
>> On a recent business trip I was unable to connect to two different hotel
>> wireless networks, yet I had no problem with getting an IP from a McDonalds
>> restaurant or at the Fort Worth airport.  As for the hotels, my co-worker
>> that has a Windows laptop had no problem with either hotel.  I tried to
>> troubleshoot the problem, but had no success.  My guess is that the hotel
>> wireless networks were poorly configured, however if a Windows laptop
>> connected I think that there must be a way to get a Linux laptop to work.
>> Of course, when one tries to get tech support at hotels, the customer
>> service reps eyes glass over when they find out that I'm running Linux....
>> Go figure.
>>
>> I am running 2.6.24.7-92.fc8 with the latest updates as of May 16, 2008.
>> Below is the captured output from the NetworkManager.  Any and all
>> suggestions/recommendations will be greatly appreciated.
> 
> For this specific log I can not suggest anything, it looks like the
> DHCP server just never replied. But I just committed a little
> workaround for poorly configured networks often found in hotels and
> airports: The default gateway returned by DHCP server is not in the
> same subnet as the assigned IP, so adding the default route fails. The
> workaround for it is to first add a direct route to the gateway
> machine and then the default route.

I'm not certain, but I've found that if the wmaster0 device is ever
mentioned instead of wlan0 then things are probably not going to work, I
don't know the reason for this.

Can anyone explain what's happening when this pseudo-device gets in on
the act?


-- 

Brian