The problem is (apparently) solved! When I originally installed using xfce, it installed network-manager, which is what I have been using. Works fine. Then I added openbox to try using as a stand-alone alternative to xfce.
During the original xfce install, I unchecked the option "All users may connect to this network". That worked fine under xfce. But, under openbox, networking refused to go beyond the lcoal machine. Checking the option "All users may connect to this network" causes networking to act as expected from openbox (after rebooting). Perhaps network-manager considers an alternate login (even the same actual person, from the same machine) as a different "user". I never would have thought of that. Thanks to ansgar for the suggestion. And thanks to all who replied about this! On 1/18/16, Francis Gerund <ranr...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 1/18/16, Joe <j...@jretrading.com> wrote: >> On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 13:04:38 -0500 >> Francis Gerund <ranr...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> . . . Okay. >>> >>> The problem may be with dhcp, since xfce has no problem getting to the >>> outside world, but openbox refuses to go any further than localhost. >>> >>> So, does dhcp functionality need to be installed and/or set up >>> separately for openbox? >>> >>> And if so, how? >>> >> >> It should be present in all installations, independent of window >> manager. It is a dependency of several networking packages. >> >> The current package in all distributions since squeeze, I believe, is >> isc-dhcp-client. >> >> Does /sbin/ifconfig show the network interfaces you expect to see (i.e. >> not just lo)? >> >> -- >> Joe >> >> > > > Hi, Joe. > > 1) isc-dhcp-client is installed. Apt-get says that it "is already > the newest version". (Debian 8 stable, 64-bit, with security, updates, > and backports, on standard x86 machine). > > 2) Yes, /sbin/ifconfig shows: > eth0 > lo > wlan0 > as expected. > > Specifically, > > eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx > UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 > RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 > TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 > collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 > RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) > > lo Link encap:Local Loopback > inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 > inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host > UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 > RX packets:216 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 > TX packets:216 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 > collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 > RX bytes:15104 (14.7 KiB) TX bytes:15104 (14.7 KiB) > > wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx > inet addr:192.168.0.3 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 > inet6 addr: ::226:5eff:fe90:6885/64 Scope:Global > inet6 addr: fe80::226:5eff:fe90:6885/64 Scope:Link > inet6 addr: ::e452:3eab:1f59:dab3/64 Scope:Global > UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 > RX packets:6442 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 > TX packets:4493 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 > collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 > RX bytes:3156391 (3.0 MiB) TX bytes:851035 (831.0 KiB) > > I need to connect through wlan0 (and can from xfce), which is how I > can send this email. > > The problem doesn't seem to be the wireless driver, etc. In openbox I > can ping localhost (127.0.0.1), but can't ping the router or beyond, > which is why I am guessing that somehow xfce is set up for dhcp, but > openbox is not. > > (btw, putting nm-applet into ~/.config/openbox/autostart did not seem > to solve the problem). > > Question: maybe does ~/.config/openbox/autostart need to be owner: > root and group: root? >