Internet access at libraries & other places

pccobbler

I'm new to BSD, though I used Unix many years ago. This will be hard to explain. When using some libraries and other places that offer Wi-Fi (Ethernet has largely been removed), one needs to open a browser (Firefox in my case) and wait for a drop-down to appear from the top of the screen that says something like, to obtain Internet access, click here. Then the screen changes to one where one needs to click on a pushbutton. Then Internet access is allowed. This scheme works with Windows 10/11 and Linux. But when I tried to install GhostBSD from a USB flash drive, the aforementioned behavior never started. Obviously the IT group never tested with BSD. Does anyone have some hints on how I can fix this?

wb7odyfred

There is a blue wifi (or network manager python program acçessory) icon in upper right corner, looks like an audio 776729 volume icon , in the MATE desktop, icon is different looking in XFCE desktop. Click on that icon to start/access networkmgr to enable wifi or wired network manager.

or open a terminal window, type 2 command killall networkmgr
networkmgr

"networkmgr" to start a second instance, since you killed the first instance. and can can work with the second instance, the same as the first, via clicking with the mouse pointer on the networkmgr icon.

what follows is the manual commands to achieve manual enable of wifi, from my memory. So I may have mistakes. network manager is easier to use.

ifconfig
ifconfig wlan0
ifconfig wlan0 scan #get list of available wifi network names

for networkname "abc123" and channel 6
ifconfig wlan0 ssid "abc123" channel 6
killall dhclient
text edit file /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlan0
dhclient wlan0

You asked about sign-in web page on a new wifi network at a public library. I did not answer your question specifically. Sorry, I gave a list of manual BSD commands to connect to a network. So open a web browser and see what happens, if you can login?

Read the fine manual commands:
man killall
man ifconfig
man wpa_supplicant
man dhclient

hank2121

for testing the wifi connectivity in generell, the above is surely helpful.
if its a matter of login/registration via website onto that wifi access at the library, maybe You have the chance to install the linux-version of chrome (badly maintained, I know :-() via software-station to test this via a linux version of a browser. That would show, if it s a BSD-browser-version obstacle.
Otherwise I d try with different browsers to see, what happens, Firefox became a pain in the.... in many cases, logins, online payments etc. I switched for many cases to chromium, which works better on that.
If it s some protocol or other technical issues, hmm, I d ask my "friend" Gemini, what it suggests...