help me get on my university's wireless because they won't :(

[karasuman]

I just started as a student at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, and they have a campus wireless network that I'd just love to be able to use with my laptop in all it's hardy glory. Unfortunately, using their network requires authentication as described here: https://portal.umsl.edu/authentication/

That involves downloading and running a program that downloads as Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh (and not .exe, for some reason). I've tried everything I can think of to get that program to do something, but nothing works. Wine doesn't do me any good, and even trying to run it in a terminal to SEE what it's doing accomplishes nothing.

Here's the best part. When I called campus tech support to ask for help, here's how the conversation went.

Me: Hi. I'm trying to get on your wireless network, but I can't seem to run the authentication pro--
Tech Support: Windows runs it automatically.
Me: I'm not running Windows. I'm running--
TS: You're not running Windows?
Me: No, I'm running--
TS: What are you running?
Me: Ubuntu.
TS: What?! (At this point, he sounds highly offended, like I just called his mother an ubuntu, and he isn't sure what that is, but he doesn't like it.)
Me: Linux.
TS: Oh. (You can hear the sneer.) We don't support that.
Me: You don't support that?
TS: We only support Windows.
Me: What if I had a Mac?
TS: We support Macs.
Me: Macs don't run Windows.
TS: Look, if you're smart (only he says "smart" like he means "stupid") enough to get Linux (sneer) running on your computer in the first place, you should be able to figure out how to use it without needing technical support.
Me: Okay. Well, obviously, I'm not that smart, and the hoops I need to jump through to use your wireless aren't even trying to be accessible to someone not using Microsoft.
TS: You made the decision to use Linux instead of Windows. If you wanted things to work right, you would have stuck with Windows. You're just going to have to deal with it.
Me: ...wow. Okay. Thanks. You have a great day.
TS: (click)

[Golem XIV]

*.sh files are usually shell scripts - short programs written in the shell's command language.

Assuming this is a valid Linux shell script, right - click on the file, select "Properties", select the "Permissions" tab and enable the "Allow executing the file as a program" box.

Now open a terminal window (Applications -> Accesories -> Terminal) and run the script:

~/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh

assuming the file was saved to your desktop (hence the ~/Desktop)
If my assumptions were correct, this should do it

<edit> BTW, very snotty behaviour for a tech support person. If he/she can't handle user requests with a minimum of civility, he/she should not be doing that job. I'd report him/her to his/her superior.</edit>

[karasuman]

I'm mostly positive that this ISN'T a valid Linux shell script. It's intended to run on Windows.

[Golem XIV]

I don't think Windows would know what to do with a *.sh file. Script files for Windows have a *.bat extension.

Can you open the file in a text editor, like Gedit? If it is a text file and it starts with something similar to #!/bin/bash then it most certainly is a Linux shell script file.

[Niels Olson]

If it's a shell script, it should be human-readable and we may be able to translate it for you. I can't access your link because the network won't let me past the sign in page (incidentally, LDAP SSO). Can you post the contents of the file, or attach it to a message?

FWIW, here's the company's page with some details about what they do:
http://www.secureaccesscentral.com/n...e_bradford.php

And contact information
http://www.secureaccesscentral.com/b...ay/contact.php

. Regardless of how you get this fixed, you should let them know ubuntu users want access to the network.

[avtolle]

This may be no assistance, but I googled the name of the shell script, and scanned two white papers found, which indicate this software is alleged to support Windows, Mac and Linux. So, FWIW, give Golem XIV's idea a try.

I agree this was inappropriate for the IT person (the attitude), but our younger daughter ran into a similar thing on her campus; the difference was she was able to find someone around who was a bit of a Linux person who gave her help. This may be what you're going to need to do.

[karasuman]

I appreciate the help. I don't live on campus, so I can't try this stuff out right away, but I'll see what I can do tomorrow and report back.

I really appreciate the replies!

[karasuman]

Well, still no luck. Here's what happened when I did what GolemXIV suggested:

beth@dell-desktop:~$ ~/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh
awk: cmd. line:1: fatal: cannot open file `/home/beth//home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh' for reading (No such file or directory)
tail: +: invalid number of lines

gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
tar: This does not look like a tar archive
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
chmod: cannot access `./engine': No such file or directory
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 11: ./engine: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 12: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 18: mozilla: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 18: mozilla: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 19: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 25: netscape: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 25: netscape: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 26: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 30: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 33: epiphany: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 34: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 37: konqueror: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 38: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 46: seamonkey: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 46: seamonkey: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 47: function: not found
/home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: 50: opera: not found
Error running CSA.sh. Please call the helpdesk.
rm: cannot remove `engine': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `agent.config': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `tmp.csa': No such file or directory

It then launched a page in Firefox that it couldn't load because it couldn't find the file it wanted to open.

I tried opening the program as a text document, but I get a "gedit has not been able to detect the character encoding" error.

[Golem XIV]

I think we're on good ground. The line

awk: cmd. line:1: fatal: cannot open file `/home/beth//home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh' for reading (No such file or directory)

suggests that this IS a Linux script and that for some reason it is appending the home path twice to the file name (note the doubling of /home/beth and the double slash between them)
The rest of the errors stem from this: The script can't file the file specified (because the path is wrong) so it can't extract the contents from the embedded gzip file.

Try copying the file on your desktop (looks like it wants to be there) and double-clicking it to run.

If it won't work, please type

cat Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh | less

copy the first few lines and paste them here. You can press q to exit the less listing.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge of awk and the command line can give you a better answer.

[karasuman]

The file is already saved to my desktop, and running it (after enabling it to BE run) just gives exactly what happened before.

When I do what you just asked me to, I get a screen filled with tildes (one per line), and hitting q gives me:

cat: Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh: No such file or directory

If I run

cat: /home/beth/Desktop/Bradford_Dissolvable_Agent.sh

, I get

#!/bin/sh
init_dir=`pwd`
mkdir .CSA.TEMP >/dev/null
\cd .CSA.TEMP
SKIP=`awk '/^__BEGIN_GZIP__/ { print NR +1; exit 0; }' $init_dir/$0`
tail -n +$SKIP $init_dir/$0 | gzip -dc | tar x
chmod +x ./engine

#LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.bncsa_deps:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./engine >/dev/null
#rm -r .bncsa_deps/
./engine >/dev/null
function doMoz
{
if mozilla -remote 'ping()';
then mozilla -remote "openFile(`pwd`/results.html)";
else mozilla file://`pwd`/results.html ;
fi;
}
function doNetscape
{
if netscape -remote 'ping()';
then netscape -remote "openFile(`pwd`/results.html)";
else netscape file://`pwd`/results.html;
: