JISHOU, HUNAN — As I posted earlier, I’ve been online here using Windows for the past week, but the Linux side of my laptop was out in the cold. Today I found the solution, and this Ubuntu user is back in the saddle again.
Other Linux users in China have had the same problem, so I’m posting my solution here for their benefit. If you don’t really care, I won’t be offended if you go read something else.
Universities in China restrict access to their networks using Ruijie’s ruijie supplicant protocol, a variant of the standard IEEE 802.1x protocol, with (it seems) a unique implementation of MD5 encryption. In other words, if you don’t have the connection program, you have no Internet access. (Ruijie is a big IT firm here, like Cisco is in the States.)
The Windows application, Ruijie Supplicant, works fine. After you input your static IP address, netmask, gateway, DNS settings, username and password, you’re home free.
But the Linux client I was given, xrgsu, was not working. It would find the gateway, but authentication would fail. So, no joy.
The university IT staff was swamped with service calls from the returning students, so I had to bide my time. So, I decided to do a little research.
Other Linux users have had the same problem: xrgsu does not work. So I was not alone. The big question was could I find the solution.
