Cannot Sign In Using Hotel WiFi on Linux (Ubuntu / Mint)

I had trouble connecting to the Internet while abroad using the hotel1 WiFi2 on my Linux Mint laptop.

The Problem

I could connect to the WiFi and obtain an IP address, however, the hotel’s internet sign-in page failed to load in both Chromium or Firefox. Turns out it was a DNS oddity.

The Solution

Update (thanks to Abe)

For Ubuntu 17.04 simply run:

sudo dhclient -r

Original Solution

When I had this problem on Linux Mint the following solved the problem for me:

  1. Comment out dns=dnsmasq in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf (i.e. put a # at the beginning of the line)
  2. Restart network-manager: sudo service networking restart

Additional Steps

The following commands might also be required for some:

sudo dhclient -r
sudo dhclient

Feedback

I would appreciate if you have time to let me know if this worked for you or if anything else was needed.

  1. This was at The Intercontinental, however this is an Internet provider issue and not hotel or brand specific. ↩︎

  2. The problem also happened when using the Ethernet/LAN cable. ↩︎

tags fix, linux, ubuntu