In order to reach the Internet, you have to agree to the hotel's terms of service. The page to accept the terms of service is presented by redirecting any HTTP request from an unauthorized device. But (!) the redirect page was resolved by DNS, and DNS traffic to the Internet is also blocked. Only the local DNS resolver is accessible.
The instant any machine that specifies a specific DNS resolver tries to connect, the attempted redirect fails silently. In order to get things working, you have to clear your DNS settings to use the DHCP-specified DNS resolver, click the "accept" button on the redirect page, and then re-enter your previous DNS settings.
I wasn't so much angry that this was happening, than angry that they did such a ham-handed, botched job of it. If you're going to block outside DNS, you have to redirect to an IP address rather than a DNS-resolved address.
In order to reach the Internet, you have to agree to the hotel's terms of service. The page to accept the terms of service is presented by redirecting any HTTP request from an unauthorized device. But (!) the redirect page was resolved by DNS, and DNS traffic to the Internet is also blocked. Only the local DNS resolver is accessible.
The instant any machine that specifies a specific DNS resolver tries to connect, the attempted redirect fails silently. In order to get things working, you have to clear your DNS settings to use the DHCP-specified DNS resolver, click the "accept" button on the redirect page, and then re-enter your previous DNS settings.
I wasn't so much angry that this was happening, than angry that they did such a ham-handed, botched job of it. If you're going to block outside DNS, you have to redirect to an IP address rather than a DNS-resolved address.