Noob Internet connection problem :) - logging into a public network

Hello all,

I am brand new to the world of Backtrack and am in need of a an answer to a seemingly easy problem! I installed the Gnome 64bit version of BT5 on my laptop and everything seems to be working.

I am trying to log in to my school's public wireless network. Typically I would try to connect and windows 7 would then say limited connection etc.. And I would accept some terms and then login with a username and pw. With BT5 I try to connect to a network and it tries to get an IP, but don't know how to log in to the network to receive that address.

Any hints?? Thanks in advance!

D

ok here's how i did it in my college...not all colleges are the same so if this doesn't work you should just talk to the network admin in your school to find out...i had the same issue in my school running Ubuntu or Backtrack or any linux distro for that matter..the school was running a script and Linux didn't know how to read it without a package..so download in synaptic LSB 3.0 or higher and see if that works..you will need wine but backtrack has wine already so you're good..but it's best to ask your schools help desk to solve this issue...and make sure you have a virus protection installed..i know linux doesn't really need one but some schools won't let you in knowing your are unprotected...good luck..

I've never heard of "logging into" a network to get an IP address. Once you're connected to the network you just send a DHCP request. So what's happening? Is there no DHCP request? Is there no DHCP reply?

If you're talking about those Radius servers that you need to log into before you can access the internet, well they have nothing to do with getting an IP address -- you have an IP address before you communicate with the Radius server.

If you open up Wireshark you'll be able to watch out for DHCP packets. This is what I did when my friend's Samsung phone couldn't get an IP address on my home network... it turns out that the phone was sending a DHCP request for a particular IP, and then the access point replied to say that the IP was unavailable, and then the phone would just give up instead of sending out a new DHCP request for any available IP. Couldn't find a way to get the phone to stop requesting that particular address so I resorted to manual IP.

Anyway if you want a quick overrun of how to connect to the internet in Linux, try this: http://virjacode.com/tutorials/linux_inet_connect.html

Virchanza's right once connected you have an IP adress already. It's a RADIUS server or similar login that will allow you access to the network. On open access wireless RADIUS networks anyone can connect to the wireless but for any further connectivity you need the RADIUS password.

One exemtion to this is some networks do allow connectivity between connected clients who are not RADIUS certified. this can allow the creation of peer to peer networks or gaming networks running on local school networks.

Sorry for resurrecting and old thread, but I have a similar problem. I'm trying to log onto the internet at school. To get online you need to connect to the network, and when you try to load a page it redirects you to the page where you log in with your student ID. It says that I need to enable JavaScript in my browser, but I already have that enabled. I noticed when I first installed BackTrack (I messed up the OS once and had to reinstall it) that before any Javascript would run, I had to tell it to allow scripts. I'm assuming that's something BackTrack does, because I have never had Firefox ask me to do that before. For some reason it doesn't ask me if I want to allow scripts to run when I try to login, and since I can't get to the internet I can't tell it to globally allow scripts from a different page. Is there any way to do that without connecting to the internet?

I'm running from a Crunchbang live CD right now, and I'll probably just stop at the local library on the way home and tell it to globally allow scripts, but if there's a way to do that offline, I would like to do that here so I can save myself some driving. I appreciate any help y'all can give me.

Origin - BT5's version of Firefox has an addon called "No-Script", you can google it and see what it does. There should be an blue N icon somewhere in Firefox, don't remember where but I think it was upper right corner or bottom right corner. Click it and you can change the settings ie. allow scripts on a certain web page, block all scripts etc. That should fix your issue.

*removed*

@Virchanza - I'm having a similar problem when I spoof my MAC, quite often after spoofing I'm simply unable to obtain an IP address, I'll look into this matter. Thanks!