Tricks, Hacks and Fixes for Everyday Problems.

First of all, I would like to thank my readers for their support. I have been receiving a decent amount of email about the site. We are averaging around 200 unique hits a day while also  been getting a lot of repeat visitors. For a new blog with only social media as advertising (Facebook, Twitter, Digg) this is great news! However, this is my first reader submitted question that warranted its own article and I hope it answers everything.

Reader X submitted: I can’t access the internet with wireless on Backtrack 4, how do I fix this?

Hit the jump for the answer.

Why you can’t access the internet with wifi on Backtrack 4

By default, Backtrack 4 has Networking turned off. So, if you plug your computer into a network or connect to a network with wifi it won’t automatically assign you an IP address with DHCP. This is to prevent people from noticing that you have jumped into their network. Turning on networking also prevents you from putting your network card into monitor mode (which allows you to sniff other people’s data). The network manager is also turned off by default.

Turning networking on in Backtrack 4

To enable DHCP and networking, simply open the shell and type:

/usr/bin/start-network

To enable WICD the network manager, simply open the shell and type:

/usr/bin/wicd-client

I created a small .sh script that automatically runs these commands for me whenever I need. You can make one as well.

Right Click the desktop and click “Create New” then select “Text File”.

In the text document paste the following:

cd ..
/usr/bin/start-network
/usr/bin/wicd-client

Save the document to your USB key or if you have installed backtrack to your hardrive save it to your desktop as “startwifi.sh”.

(You can also download my script startwifi.sh here and continue at the next step)

Right click startwifi.sh and click “properties”.

Click the top middle tab called “permissions”.

Change all three options in the “Access Permissions” area to “Can Read and Write”.

Underneath those three options should be a check box called “Is Executable”, select it by placing a check in the box. Then Click “OK”.

Now whenever you click startwifi.sh it will automatically start running both WICD and your Networking. You should be able to see the wireless networks now by clicking the Networking Icon in the System Tray (Which is located in the lower right hand of the bar on the bottom of the screen) and selecting whichever network you want!

I hope this article helped!

Joshua