Connecting to Wireless Networks

[Rick Bilonick]

I asked about connecting to public wireless networks before but did not 
get much input. I am using RH 9 on a laptop. I have no problem 
connecting to my home wireless network. I used the gui network program 
to do the configuration. It uses wep in managed mode and dhcp. It was 
simple to do.

But connecting the same laptop to other wireless networks has never 
worked. No matter how I try to configue using the gui interface, I never 
get a connection, regardless of whether the network has an essid and wep 
or not. The green led on the wireless card (D-Link 650 - prism 2 
chipset) always flashes (it is solid when it connects). (I have no 
trouble connecting the laptop to wired networks in hotels.)

So I have recently tried using iwconfig. I open a shell as root and 
enter commands like:

/sbin/iwconfig eth1 key off
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
/sbin/iwconfig eth1 essid any
/sbin/ifconfig eth1 up
/sbin/dhclient eth1

if I the network doesn't use wep. If the network requires an essid 
and/or wep, I include the information and modify the above commands 
apropriately.

When I use these commands, the card connects to the network (the green 
light stays on without blinking) and the icon on the panel shows a 
connection. If I do a "netstat -r" I can see the gateway's IP address. I 
can ping this IP address and my computer at home. But I can't do much 
else. DNS doesn't work and I can't find any web pages. The web browser 
is supposed to go to a login web page but I can never get to it. My 
understanding was all I needed was an empty "dhclient.conf" file and I 
would get a lease and the domain name server address. I do get a lease 
but I don't think DNS is working. I can't ssh or telnet anywhere. (Yet I 
can ping as described above.)

I have tried this on two different wireless networks (Barnes & Noble and 
a university library). I connect but can't do anything other than ping 
some IP addresses. I cannot get to the login web pages or any other web 
pages. What else do I need to do? Something else must need to be 
configured. Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Rick B.