[GLLUG] Proxies with WPA

[Marr]

On Sunday 09 January 2011 00:11:02 Chick Tower wrote:
> I figured out how to connect to a wireless access point that used
> encryption, WPA to be specific, using wpa_supplicant.  However, the two
> browsers I tried to use while connected to it, Firefox and Midori,
> refused to resolve websites until I disabled the proxy server in the
> browsers' settings.  ping had no problem resolving URLs; I may have been
> successful with links, too.  I use Privoxy to block ads and cookies, and
> it hasn't been a problem on unencrypted access points.  (Well, maybe it
> has been once or twice.)
> 
> I searched on the Privoxy and Arch Linux (the distro on my laptop)
> websites, and did a quick search on the web in general, and found
> absolutely no mention of any such problem.  Granted, this was the only
> time I ever tried to connect to an encrypted access point, so maybe
> there was a setting on the access point itself that caused this problem,
> but does anyone know of any problems with proxies and WPA?

Hi Chick,

For months, I had a similar problem with having to occasionally disable the 
proxy (like you, I use Privoxy) in my browsers (Firefox and Konqueror) to 
access websites. Email and 'ping {some random site}' always worked fine, 
though. Mind you, this was not anything to do with any encrypted access points 
-- it was happening to me (inconsistently) after disconnecting and later re-
connecting my DSL modem/router from the Internet -- but your symptoms sound so 
similar to mine that I thought I'd chime in here.

You might want to try restarting Privoxy. After a long time of not 
understanding why I had to temporarily disable Privoxy, I recently found that 
a simple Privoxy restart seems to "cure all ills".  I don't know how Arch 
Linux does it, but if it's at all Slackware-like, the command should be 
something like this:

   /etc/rc.d/rc.privoxy restart

HTH.... Good luck!

Regards,
Bill