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

[John Winters]

I've just returned from holiday and noticed a recurring problem when
trying to use public (and other) WiFi access points.

At home, my laptops work fine from my WiFi point (WPA-PSK) and also from
various other ones at other people's houses.

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).  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.
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.)

Back to the main point - I also got much the same performance trying to
use public access points - e.g. on the Britanny Ferries boat on the way
home.  I could get past authentication, but then DHCP requests were all
ignored.  I tried both Network Manager and Wicd, and various different
DHCP clients under Wicd (Network Manager doesn't offer a choice).  Of
course the suppliers just say, "We support only Windows" so there's no
help there.  (SFR went even further - their website says, "Windows only
- no Macs, no Linux")

How do Windows boxes get IP addresses from such access points?  Does
anyone know any special tricks you can use to get connectivity?

TIA,
John
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