Can't connect to Starbucks wifi

Question

Machine:

Ubuntu 17.10 Kernel 4.14 (for battery on my XPS 9560)

Steps to Recreate:

connect to the network (RED_STB)
enter a user and password
when I hit enter it redirects me to another page (wifiinstant.netsecure.pe) which says that it can't be reached, leaving me unconnected.

What have I tried:

Manually adding DNS to IPv4 NM settings
Adding connectivity to NetworkManager.conf
Reconfiguring resolvconf (sudo dpkg-reconfigure resolvconf)

A couple of key points:

it works on windows
I can connect to other networks no problem

Hardware:

$ lspci | grep Net
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32)

NetworkManager Config:

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile

[ifupdown]
managed=false

[device]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

[connectvitiy]
url=http://nmcheck.gnome.org/check_network_status.txt

Any ideas?

I've had similar problems with firefox on ubuntu. You could try going to the page http://neverssl.com - that's designed to make the network login page appear. — Organic Marble, Feb 13 '18 at 00:29
This happens with both Firefox and Chrome. I suspect that part of the connection process is redirecting to some site that then gives my MAC a connection, but I can't get redirected to that service/site because it immediately fails on Linux. — Brandon Bertelsen, Feb 13 '18 at 00:36
Your issue sounds like it may be contained to the web portal. If it works on Windows, you may be denied based on your user agent alone, this is not totally uncommon on public wifi hotspots. Try spoofing your user agent, at least to verify whether the issue is still there or not. Also try spoofing your MAC in case it was blacklisted. — pzkpfw, Feb 14 '18 at 08:45
@mikestewart is this a bug though, when they're the ones not following RFC? — Emobe, Sep 23 '19 at 13:30
@Emobe Its a bug. It doesn't work for a typical use case. Why that bug report was accepted, and fixed. (upstream) — mike stewart, Oct 04 '19 at 17:49
related: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1023429/cant-connect-to-google-starbucks-wifi-on-ubuntu-17-10 — michael, Jan 12 '20 at 02:32

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited May 14 '18 at 22:58

11

Sitting at Starbucks now, it looks like I've found a workaround for this. In my case the error shows the hostname in quotes:

Error resolving “secure.datavalet.io”: Name or service not known

Work Around

In a Terminal, find out the IP address of secure.datavalet.io.
```
  ip route
```
(Example output: default via 172.31.98.1)
run sudo nano /etc/hosts to add the IP address and hostname (from error) as a new line in your systems hosts file.
```
172.31.98.1 secure.datavalet.io
```
Usually optional, but in some cases where you've previously connected, you may need to also run sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf and insert a line for the first nameserver with the IP address:
```
nameserver 172.31.98.1
```
Try to connect to WI-FI again (e.g., through Firefox, which has the functionality of requesting the Network login page).

Explanation

It seems the problem is the hotspot server name (aka WiFi router) cannot be found during normal DNS lookup. This is due to a common out-of-spec router configuration, and the fact systemd operates according to RFC specification.

There is a bug report: 1766969 that seems to identify this problem with WiFi hotspots common to hotel WiFi, coffee shops, and other public WiFi configurations that work on Windows or Apple but not systemd. Hopefully the solution will allow it to fallback to older functionality to fix this common use case. On the bug report at the top, you have the option share that this bug affects you too, and/or be notified when resolved.

edited May 14 '18 at 22:58

fosslinux

3,831

answered Mar 31 '18 at 22:38

Stepan Naumov

144

Well done! and welcome to Peru :P – Brandon Bertelsen Mar 31 '18 at 22:50
thanks this did the trick! Hopefully to improve the SEO, the dns that wasn't working for me was aruba.odyssys.net – fratrik Apr 18 '18 at 20:00
How do you find the ip address of aruabe.odyssys.net? It comes up as 127.0.0.53 for me using dig and that's not a reachable address ...? – Ole Apr 23 '18 at 13:33
@Ole you need to connect to WIFI first, i.e. using your phone, and run ping -a aruabe.odyssys.net for example – Stepan Naumov Apr 26 '18 at 00:47
Yup got it - Thanks - I ended up just looking for the wifi router under general settings, and then added aruabe.odyssys.net and the ip address to /etc/hosts – Ole Apr 26 '18 at 01:24
Not working for me. I've been struggling with this since clean install of bionic 18.04 (from xenial 16.04). I've tried this solution to edit/add /etc/hosts
It's close, but browser hangs after redirect from aruba.odyssys.net to sbux-portal.globalreachtech.com. I also tried spoofing my MAC address and even later at a starbucks own the street.

Any idea where I can report a bug?
– mike stewart May 05 '18 at 00:26
@ubashu Thanks for approving my answer but I'm not sure I understand your edit? I posted a question in meta asking What is the preferred way to add a numbered list using markdown?. Please feel free to delete this comment and move discussion there. – mike stewart May 17 '18 at 22:28
@mikestewart I can't delete your comment :-), I'm no mod! – fosslinux May 17 '18 at 22:35
@ubashu can you ping me in chat, please or have a look at meta? – Fabby May 17 '18 at 22:43
@Fabby I assume you are talking about your Meta answer? – fosslinux May 18 '18 at 00:37

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 15 '18 at 20:14

-1

The only workaround that I could find was to boot into Windows, connect, then boot back into Linux. Less than ideal but functional.

answered Feb 15 '18 at 20:14

Brandon Bertelsen

2,450

Can't connect to Starbucks wifi

2 Answers2

Work Around

Explanation

Linked