PSU Guest WiFi for Linux

Mordac


Explanation

The Portland State University wireless internet network is available to the public - sorta. Other universities are more open:

Portland State protects its network from random public abuse (or use) with a sign-in page that only works for Windoze (not even Mac OSX), and a cellphone SMS passcode kludge that works for a long list of international providers (Nepal?) but not Oregon companies like Consumer Cellular. If you have an iPhone or Android, you can use the SMS kludge, but that means you already have a connection.

So - internet login it is. The email can be delivered anywhere, but gmail is easy, you only need to sign in and open the mail and click the link. This is the only thing I use gmail for. Otherwise, I prefer to not share my private email with Google Analytics and the NSA.

I don't know why the main PSU SSID suddenly becomes enabled for the reconnect, instead of staying on PSU Guest, but that is what seems to work. Before fall 2015, you stayed on PSU Guest with no major hassle.

How did I figure this out? The "dhclient -r" was a frob attempted at the Smith Center helpdesk. The rest of it was trial and error.

Mordac is the Preventer of Information Services, a character in the Dilbert comic strip, whose job is to make the computers in Dilbert's workplace inaccessable and impossible to use. There ought to be a mordac.pdx.edu server at PSU, explaining how to accomodate obstructive PSU IT behavior. The best explanation I can come up with is that if PSU students are permitted to use Linux, they will get high paying jobs using Linux in the Portland area, and PSU IT will lose a source of abusable underpaid labor. I assume PSU administration would rather have alumni paying off their student loans, then making charitable donations to PSU for the rest of their wealthy lives, but if the bosses complain too much then PSU IT will cut them off. Don't fuck with Mordac.

Mordac (last edited 2016-02-09 02:37:41 by KeithLofstrom)