Guest Account mode for Captive Portal

I have several Balance Ones in the field and our clients (with public wifi)
would like to use the Captive Portal with Guest Account for their customers.

I understand this feature was removed with the 6.1 firmware but it
will be implemented with the next firmware. Can this be confirmed? And
is there a timetable available for the next firmware release?

I also understand that this Captive Portal will be able to work with any
traffic coming into the LAN ports, is this correct?
Will our client be able to print out a large number of ‘router-generated’
guest accounts in advance with time limits applied (7 day, 30 day, etc.)
that will activate upon first usage?

Sorry for all the questions, we have clients that really want this feature
and we would like to keep it local with the Balance One.

Thanks for your help!

The Captive Portal functionality will return on the 6.1.2 firmware and it will apply to all LAN clients. You will be able to generate usernames/passwords ahead of time.

The timeline for 6.1.2 should be late May or June.

I made a mistake here, the Captive Portal functionality will not be included with the 6.1.2 firmware release. Rather, it will be included with the 6.3.0 release and their is no defined timeline yet.

Sorry for the confusion here…

Hello, I was wondering if there is an update on this.

I have a client in a hotel that originally just wanted a Captive Portal for wifi, now they want to have guests authenticate. Ok great I can do that in firmware 5.4.9 on a balance 305 (and 8 Peplink AP Ones). And the office computers are Lan, so no captive portal.

Then it turns out in their new addition they want to have wired as well as wireless… on the captive portal, with authentication. Joy… can’t do captive portal on wired on 5.4.9, and even if I could the office machines would get the captive portal too.

With 6.1.2, I can do Vlans, and captive portal on certain Vlans for wired and wireless, and use the default vlan with no captive portal… but no internal authentication, so I’d need to deploy an LDAP or Radius server. I just played with an open source radius server, it didn’t work so hot, plus I’d rather not have to deal with a separate server.

Thank you
Heath

The guest account mode for the captive portal with internal authentication will be supported on firmware 6.3 onwards, ETA is Q1 2015.

Cool thanks, I’ll let my client know.

Is it possible to have the Captive Portal active on only one SSID? We are maintaining a separate SSID, on a separate VLAN, for our “Guest” network, and only that one needs to use the portal. If that’s possible, it isn’t obvious in the admin interface how to do it.

Thanks!

Yes, on the AP management, under the SSID section there’s a check box whether or not you want it to use the captive portal… I think it’s at the bottom… of course I could be confusing 5.4.9 and 6.1.2… Which firmware are you using… are you managing the APs with a Balance device, or managing the APs directly?

Managing with a Balance 30 rev. 2, FW 6.1.3 build 2766. The APs are AP One AC Minis running 3.5.0.

I looked in the advanced SSID settings, but there’s no checkbox there.

Thanks!

Hmm I wonder if the menu differs between 6.1.2 and 6.1.3. I have a peplink at home right now awaiting deployment, I’ll boot into 6.1.2 when I get home and look… I know I’ve seen the option…

Right found it… my bad… 5.4.9 has it under the SSID. 6.1.x has it in the VLANs. So if you go to LAN settings, then click on the vlan your guest SSID is on, in there you can turn the captive portal on and off. So the whole vlan will get it, wired or wireless.