[OPLINTECH] wireless access on kindles and ipads

Fri Feb 3 14:28:51 EST 2012

I just wanted to give an update that it appears that simply changing the 
secondary DNS entry to one of OPLINs DNS servers seems to have solved 
the problem.

The thing I wasn't expecting, because I had tried making the change 
before I wrote the original email, is apparently it needed a cold boot 
for the change to get pushed out to the connecting clients..

Thanks again, and have a good weekend.

Joe

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

On 2/2/2012 10:17 AM, Ron Woods wrote:
>
> 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  <mailto:knuevejo at oplin.org>
>   
>   
> _______________________________________________
> OPLINTECH mailing list
> OPLINTECH at lists.oplin.org  <mailto:OPLINTECH at lists.oplin.org>
> http://lists.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/oplintech
> Search:http://oplin.org/techsearch
>   
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OPLINTECH mailing list
> OPLINTECH at lists.oplin.org
> http://lists.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/oplintech
> Search: http://oplin.org/techsearch
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplintech/attachments/20120203/7f54a893/attachment.html