Re: adding stuff to the base installation to make user experience better

[Jan Danielsson <jan.m.danielsson%gmail.com@localhost>]

On 07/06/17 17:23, Christos Zoulas wrote:
[---]
> Alas, because of network policy on the wifi network, I needed to enter
> a code to access the network, and for that I needed a browser. We don't
> ship a browser in base.
> 
>>From the looks of it, a text browser would suffice (and it did), so
> I decided to go with "links" as opposed to "lynx" for no particular
> reason.

   I asked for this many years ago (I'd say 2006-2007:ish) for the same
reason (university network required web login, and I couldn't download
lynx because I couldn't authenticate because I had no lynx..).

   After I had bootstrapped using a neighbor's computer I wrote a small
program which did the minimal required to send the form data required to
authenticate (It just generated a HTTP request, sent it to the login
server and stored the result in a file).  (Much like wget's --post-data
argument works).  Then I made a rc.d script for it so it ran at boot.

   I don't know how complicated those web login-things generally are.
The one at the university didn't require a session; one could just
submit the form and it worked.  If that's the norm, then it's pretty
trivial to write a "weblogin" tool which could be included in base for
these types of bootstrapping needs.

-- 
Kind regards,
Jan Danielsson