[Gllug] Getting an IP address at a public WiFi point

[Alan Pope]

Hi John,

2009/8/15 John Winters <john at sinodun.org.uk>:
> I've just returned from holiday and noticed a recurring problem when
> trying to use public (and other) WiFi access points.
>

What distribution are you using? I have had similar issues to what you
describe, on my own laptops. One with an Intel 3945 Wifi chip, the
other with an Atheros chipset.

> At the house where I was staying in France there was a dual access point
> provided by SFR.  It had a secured i/f for the householder, and a public
> i/f for use by other SFR customers who happened to be in range (not
> likely in the depths of rural France).

Sounds like the Fon (Fonera) access point I have at home. It does much
the same thing.

>  I could connect to the latter,
> but even once I'd worked out the correct authentication details (the
> ones printed on the bottom of the router were wrong) I couldn't connect
> to the full-fat secure point.  I got past authentication OK, but then my
>  laptop would sit there sending DHCP requests and getting no response.

I would suspect the wifi driver. I had no end of issues (as you
describe) in kernels prior to 2.6.30, specifically with the Intel wifi
chip, but it seems better now I'm on Ubuntu 9.10 with Linux kernel
2.6.31.

> After 1 minute it would time out and allocate itself one of those DIY IP
> addresses.  (As an aside - what is the point of this behaviour?  I've
> never come across an instance where it provides you with any kind of
> connectivity.  It just makes life more difficult.)
>

Connect two machines together directly via a cable and they can talk
to eachother with no server infrastructure. I believe it was also used
by the old classic Xbox if you connected two consoles together.

Cheers,
Al.
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