[OPLINTECH] wireless access on kindles and ipads

Thu Feb 2 10:17:39 EST 2012

Hi Joe,

I had a similar problem with Kindles a few weeks ago, and my solution to fix it was this:

I upgraded the version of ISC DHCP Server (Im pretty sure IpCop runs dhcpd) however upgrading just that module is not always the easiest thing to do with a package like Ipcop.

However, what you can do is edit the dhcpd.config file on IPcop and find or add the following

    option domain-name-servers $DNS_SERVER_IP;

where it says “option domain-name-servers $DNS_Server_IP;  That is a variable you must assign. You can change that to an actual DNS server that is NOT your default gateway…this will cause dhcpd to assign this as the clients DNS. I have found this fixes the kindle as the kindle MUST be able to resolve DNS to Amazon’s cloud in order for it to say its connected to your wifi properly. 

If you don’t want to edit the config file, you can use IPcop’s GUI to make the changes as noted in this article (the field Primary and Secondary DNS is what your looking for on that screenshot)

http://www.ipcop.org/2.0.0/en/admin/html/services-dhcp.html

so for example if your using Oplin’s DNS servers you need to go into your dhcp server or dhcpd config file and tell dhcpd to assign 156.63.130.100 as the primary DNS for DHCP clients on your wireless network and not the default gateway IP or else some mobile devices such as the Kindle won’t work rightI have found using dhcpd to actually assign the same DNS servers the firewall system uses to the clients instead of using the default gateway of the firewall private address space has resolved the issue completely.

It seems in some cases the Kindle is fooled into thinking its not connected because DNS won’t resolve past the portal page without agreeing. By adding DNS(such as oplin’s) and using your dhcp server or dhcpd to actually assign that address instead of the default gateway as DNS causes the kindle to function properly. Also if you have a way of passlisting traffic, passlist those DNS servers through your portal page…that way the Kindle can resolve DNS to the Amazon cloud and they will still have to agree to your portal page to browse the net.

If your using OpenDNS just assign those servers via DHCP in place of the IPcop IP and exempt those dns servers from your portal page(if your running one)

I actually meant to post this earlier and forgot.  I had a question about this as well. I spent a few days tracking down the issue and this is what I found out the problem was. The Kindle is notorious for the X next to wifi..you can ping it just fine, its connected but it won’t do anything…I was able to track it to the DNS issue above. Once the DNS issue with DHCP was fixed, the TOS page would then resolve properly and the user would agree, the connection would function as intended.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Ipcop has a GUI for setting that DNS and should make it pretty simple. If IPCop is using 156.63.130.100 as its DNS server, then just put that same DNS server in under the DHCP setting for DNS…this will cause DHCP to assign the 156.63.130.100 as the DNS server instead of the IP of the IPcop box. 

This has fixed my issue, your mileage may vary.

Sincerely

Ron Woods

Computer Services Manager

St. Clairsville Public Library

740-695-2062

http://www.stclibrary.org

woodsro at oplin.org

From: oplintech-bounces at lists.oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at lists.oplin.org] On Behalf Of Chad Neeper
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 4:35 PM
To: oplintech at lists.oplin.org
Subject: Re: [OPLINTECH] wireless access on kindles and ipads

You're not running any sort of "click this button to accept the library's access policies" proxy are you? I seem to recall others having this problem on occasion, where the policy page wasn't being displayed on the Kindle/iPad/WhatHaveYou and thus couldn't be accepted prior to browsing.

______________________________
Chad Neeper
Senior Systems Engineer

Level 9 Networks
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

Full LAN/WAN consulting services -- Specialized in libraries and schools

On 1/31/2012 4:47 PM, Joe wrote: 

I know this is kind of shot in the darkish, but the last few days, I 
have found that it seems that people with Kindles and Ipads are either 
unable to connect to our wireless network, or in the case of the ipad, 
can connect but cannot browse the web..  Has anybody else seen something 
like this happen?  (we're running ipcop 2.0 and dd-wrt on the access 
points..)

The only think I can think of that we have changed recently is that we 
upgrade our IPCop firewall to ver. 2.0, but I can't see anything in the 
settings that would lead to these device specific outages..

So, has anybody else seen something similar of late?

Thanks.

Joe

Joseph Knueven
Director
Germantown Public Library
51 N. Plum St.
Germantown, OH 45327
937-696-9998x10
knuevejo at oplin.org

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