• Registered: 2009-08-30
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Help - Chumby now in no-WiFi zone with weekly passwd check!

Two problems - any help solving these would be greatly appreciated!!!

1) My son's Chumby is going to spend the next 9 months living in a college dorm which is wired for ethernet, but where WiFi does not reach.  He's not allowed to install his own WiFi, so he has to go with wired ethernet.  I've seen a few recommendations for usb-to-ethernet on this forum, so this issue should be easily solved.

2) About once every 6 days, the wired ethernet connection will block internet access.  The user is required to open a web browser which will pop up a password box with a userid and password that must be filled in.  The password will be changed every 2 months or so.  How do we get Chumby by this????

Thanks in advance!

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: Help - Chumby now in no-WiFi zone with weekly passwd check!

1) As you know, we now support Ethernet dongles directly.  One no-fuss choice is the Apple USB Ethernet Adpater, which is probably discounted at the college bookstore.  Otherwise, you'll have to make sure that whatever dongle you choose has a supported chipset, which is often tricky to determine.

2) This is a bit more problematic, since the chumby does not have a browser.  Chances are pretty good that this authentication service registers the MAC address of the network interface, so one way to handle this would be to put the Ethernet dongle on your PC, register normally using the web page, then return the dongle to the chumby.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2009-08-30
  • Posts: 3

Re: Help - Chumby now in no-WiFi zone with weekly passwd check!

Thanks - so great ideas!

I was looking at the Trendnet ET100C which is $16 at Amazon.

For the 2nd issue, I was wondering if setting up a NAT firewall would give me seamless solution since the desktop PC would authenticate every 6 days and the Chumby would share the same MAC.  Should this work?

  • Registered: 2008-06-27
  • Posts: 518

Re: Help - Chumby now in no-WiFi zone with weekly passwd check!

For the second issue, you can usually treat it like an Xbox 360, which connects via Ethernet and also doesn't have a web browser.  Because of this, they usually have an exception mechanism for devices like these.

Contact the campus' network operations department and see what your options are, but I think treating it like a 360 is the way to go.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: Help - Chumby now in no-WiFi zone with weekly passwd check!

NJChum wrote:

For the 2nd issue, I was wondering if setting up a NAT firewall would give me seamless solution since the desktop PC would authenticate every 6 days and the Chumby would share the same MAC.  Should this work?

Yes, spoofing a MAC would probably also work.  it all depends upon how their authentication mechanism actually works.  Fortunately, the possibilities are somewhat limited.

Another way do to is it to take a look at the source of the authentication page, and see if you can write a simple script that performs the same submission of the username and password, and use the "debugchumby" mechanism to perform it on the device.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2009-08-30
  • Posts: 3

Re: Help - Chumby now in no-WiFi zone with weekly passwd check!

I have an OLD Linksys BEFSR41 4 port router currently in mothballs....I'll resurrect that and pick up the Trendnet ET100C and give it a test.  I'll leave a message here with the results (in about a week).

Thanks for the help!