Did you know, that you can be connected to the internet with a cable and still be in the wrong subnet? That’s what happened to me. I plugged in the cable and the internet worked. Or so I thought. Then I needed to download a file from a company internal location and the server was unreachable. But for my colleague it worked without problems. Mhm. Typo? My colleague sent me a link – no luck. DNS? I tried the IP directly – no luck. Restart? Advice from IT – but no luck.

After involving two more colleagues, we figured it out: There is a thing called 802.1x Security Authentication. Basically, after connecting to the internet, you still need to enter your user credentials to be allowed into the internal parts of the network. In my company’s case, they use PEAP. Apparently, Windows and Mac usually ask for the authentication automatically when connecting to a network that offers this method. Hence the advice by IT to restart. Well, Linux doesn’t ask. You need to know how to answer! When you know it, it’s easy: In Gnome activate the method under “Network Settings” – “Security”. You may need a certificate – ask your admins!

I learned something new today.