Hotspot Solution with Captive Portal

Last week I got this project to setup a hotspot for a new coffee shop in Kelapa Gading area. Setting up the wireless is easy, but with captive portal? That's new to me. Oh, captive portal is used so the users need to get a user and password before using the network. So I googled for a clue and found this site that list down a lot of wireless application: http://www.personaltelco.net/PortalSoftware. The list was actually very helping to make a start.

To make it short, I tried a few of them but I found it too complex for a simple WiFi setup. Another search brought me to Coova project (coova.org). I use the CoovaAP which is a firmware for a LinkSys Router and voila I finished the setup in no time.. well, it took me 3 days actually. LOL. The hardest part is because I'm trying to put the router behind another router which always failed. So I then switch the main router with the CoovaAP to solve the riddle.

Okay, here is how to use CoovaAP :

1. Test your LinkSys using the original firmware. Setup an 'usual' hotspot. If it works flawlessly, proceed to next step.
2. Download a CoovaAP firmware for your device here. I used a LinkSys WRT54GL so I downloaded this file.
3. Connect to your LinkSys router directly and choose Administration - Firmware Upgrade. Choose the firmware file and click upgrade and you are advised to do this with the router plugged to an UPS. 
4. Wait until the process finish. The router will then reboot and after the DMZ light turned off, you will be ready to setup the Coova. Open the http://192.168.1.1/ page. (You need to be in the same subnet. I need not to tell you this thing actually.)
5. Taken from the guide, you need to enable boot_wait in the System - Setting. This will help you if something go wrong with the router. OH that's right. Never forget to click Save Settings in every page after you make changes. You will then see a line like this "4 config changes pending" in the screen. Click it and Apply the changes.
6. After that, setup the router network first. Setup the LAN IP and the WAN IP (the default is DHCP).
7. You might want to try connect the wifi without any hotspot solution yet. If everything works fine proceed to Hotspot menu.
8. To simplify your life, just use the "Internal Hotspot". Yes, it means the software used is inside the router actually. Neat huh?
9. After that, you might want to choose how the users will be granted the access. Whether using a login or simply to accept the ToS. Save changes!
10. Then if you want to go for the first one, create a sample custom users using the link in the right of the option. Create an user 'user' and password '123'.
11. After that you could edit the portal page. Just click it and choose which part you want to customize.
12. Phew, here is the last one. Ensure the internet line is up (step 7) and the internet LED should be green. Test your connection using another wifi-enabled devices. Open any URLs and you will be redirected to CoovaAP login page. :) 

Congratulations! You now have just deployed a captive portal for hotspot.