wicd difficulties joining some unsecured wireless networks

[Joel Roth <joelz@pobox.com>]

Hi all,

In some airports, and today at a university
I've failed to join "unsecured" networks.

I've been using wicd-gtk.

The failure takes the form of a time-out during the get IP
address stage.

I had a look at /var/log/wicd/wicd.log.

2014/08/05 09:51:29 :: Connecting to wireless network Foo-University
2014/08/05 09:51:30 :: Putting interface down
2014/08/05 09:51:30 :: Releasing DHCP leases...
2014/08/05 09:51:30 :: Setting false IP...
2014/08/05 09:51:30 :: Stopping wpa_supplicant
2014/08/05 09:51:30 :: Flushing the routing table...
2014/08/05 09:51:30 :: Putting interface up...
2014/08/05 09:51:32 :: Running DHCP with hostname sprite
2014/08/05 09:51:32 :: dhcpcd[4463]: version 6.0.5 starting
2014/08/05 09:51:32 ::
2014/08/05 09:51:32 :: dhcpcd[4466]: wlan1: starting wpa_supplicant
2014/08/05 09:51:32 ::
2014/08/05 09:51:33 :: dhcpcd[4463]: wlan1: waiting for carrier
2014/08/05 09:51:33 ::
2014/08/05 09:52:03 :: dhcpcd[4463]: timed out
2014/08/05 09:52:03 ::
2014/08/05 09:52:03 :: DHCP connection failed
2014/08/05 09:52:03 :: exiting connection thread
2014/08/05 09:52:03 :: Sending connection attempt result dhcp_failed

I believe these networks expect some user interaction.
For example, for the Foo-University network, I was told
to use my email address as the password. However, using
wicd, there is no opportunity to even enter a password.

At Phoenix airport, I heard an announcement that I could
use internet via Boingo hotspot. 

The wicd-gtk listing showed the network as "unsecured".
I expected to get an IP address, then, in the browser, 
a page asking for money before I can continue. I didn't
get this, just the failure to get an IP address.

The wicd.log file shows the same pattern as above.

I'd appreciate any hints!!

Kind regards,

Joel




-- 
Joel Roth