TPL wireless & linux

[Giles Orr]

2009/12/7 Matt Price <matt.price-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>:
> Have other people noticed that the Toronto Public Library wireless
> doesn't work for them?  For me, the connection went fine, and I was
> assigned at 10.1 IP address; but use of the network requires you to
> check a box on a web page & then do a handshake which registers your MAC
> address with their routers.  the web page won't load on my ubuntu
> machine; I had to call tech support (1-888-855-3555, if you're ever in
> this situation), and they just executed the handshake manually, because
> apparently 'there's a software problem and linux isn't supported.'
>
> After that my internet worked, and I found the following post somewhere
> else:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> If spyders.local is a local network address, it might be a problem (or
> lack) of proper name lookup. Try enabling WINS name lookup as additional
> to standard DNS.
>
> In Ubuntu/Debian you would do this by installing the winbind packages,
> together with samba I think. Once winbind is up and running, add "wins"
> to the end of the "hosts:" line in /etc/nsswitch.conf. Like this:
> ***** /etc/nsswitch.conf ******
> ....
> hosts files dns wins
> ....
> *******************************
> You might need to restart your network or reboot, but IIRC it usually
> works right away.
> ------------------------------------------------------
> I'm posting this here:
> 1 - to ask if this solution works for other people (I can't test it now
> -- my laptop's already registered here)
> 2 - to ask what this even *means* -- Why the heck wouldn't they just use
> DNS here?
> 3 - to make that 888 number available, if you don't want to have to mess
> about with your system to access a public service to which you're
> entitled and from which you absolutely shouldn't be excluded.

As far as I can tell Spyders made some fairly significant change very
recently.  (I'm working on a Debian-testing netbook.)  I first noticed
it at Guildwood library on Saturday, where I saw that they're now
using a self-signed cert.  That's going to lead to tears: Firefox
whines about it so much that it's going to freak out the 30-50% of
their users who use FF.  I think I got on the internet fine after
that, but today at North York Central I got the same complaining about
a cert (I thought I had added it permanently?) and I couldn't get
connected.  I didn't investigate further.  Being a TPL (but not a
Spyders) employee, I'm going to watch this with some interest.  I
entirely agree: if Winbind is required, that's a huge problem.  How
would a Mac handle that?

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
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