Today I wanted to write note on steps that I have taken to configure my WISP wifi network with captive portal. So this is to remind me how I made the captive portal for my WISP network. I have a Ruijie RG-RAP6260(G) WiFi 6 basestation. I wanted to give some or maybe all access to free wifi. Once they connect to my free wifi I wanted them to see my webpage. I have been thinking how to do this for a long time. I had guess this can be done. But I had to wait for other technical matters to complete such as WISP tower construction and radio and antenna installation works are still not completed. But now since the tower construction and other remaning office works are almost complete, I had to begin with the wifi ssid to my webpage problem. I had read one months ago or so about captive portal and I new it had to be something to do with hotspot. Frankly although I started my own WISP I had never used free wifi in public places, that is hotspot wifi. So I tried to find videos and tutorials on the web how to set up the wifi customer portal. I thought this would be a tedious work because I had thought I had to create mobile application, desktop and so forth. But then today I created it in only one hour or so. I still have to work on the pictures and words, style part of it but I achieved the main goal- create webpage which will be shown to the wifi customer once they click on my wifi network SSID.
So the first step is actually to choose and buy wifi basestation which supports captive portal feature. So my wifi basestation Ruijie RG-RAP6260(G) does have this feature. To set the webpage which will be shown to the user you need to use the basestation captive portal feature. In case of Ruijie RG-RAP6260(G), I first went to the Ruijie cloud website(https://cloud-as.ruijienetworks.com or search for ruijie cloud on the internet). Then I registered for an account.
You will need to verify your email which you provided during sign up.
First of all you need to create a new project. Then later on you will need to add captive portal to that project. After logging into the Ruijie cloud account you will see a page which will allow you to add a project.
You will have to fill up a form for the project:
Click on Next and you will see a webpage that ask for the device to add to the project. Since I have an AP(Access Point) device I select and click on next.
You will a next window which ask for WiFi SSID and password.
The next thing we have to do is to add Ruijie device which in our case is the RG-RAP6260(G) which is an AP device. So we need to enter the Serial Number(SN) and provide some alias name.
If you don't know the SN number for your device login into the device which in this case is the RG-RAP6260(G) wifi setting page and look for the SN number as shown below.
Once you have added the device sucessfully in your project you will the device added to the project device list as shown below.
Now finally one can begin the configuration of the webpage for customer using the captive portal.To do this you will need to go to the Project Tab and on the left side panel you should see captive portal under the Auth & Accounts sub-menu.
Then you will see a page to add captive portal.
Then you have to add information, logo, background picture,message etc. But the important thing is that your wifibase station must be already configured with credentials. For example since my basestation is already configured and its wifi SSID is dm_cloud. It will automatically show the SSID availability in the SSID part of the form.
Next you have to add the created captive portal to the project then you will see the captive portal added to the project.
The final step is to check the webpage login page. Open wifi setting on PC or mobile phone and select the WiFi SSID that you just created. Then enter the credentials for the SSID and then you will see the webpage where you can put a link to your webpage to direct the user to that webpage.
