Setup a Guest Network

This how to will explain how to setup a guest network using the captive portal. Guest Networks are widely used to allow guests controlled internet access at hotels, campings or businesses.

../../_images/opnsense_hotspot_controller.png

Note

For the example we expect the GUESTNET interface to be connected with your actual guest network switch or access point. This tutorial does not explain how to setup a wireless network.

Businesses

Businesses usually want to share internet access with their guest and show them a landing page with a welcome message and some usage guidelines (policy). At the same time it is important to make sure guests won’t be able to access the company’s local network and limit the maximum internet usage.

Hotels and Campings

../../_images/bel.png

Hotels and campings usually utilize a captive portal to allow guests (paid) access to internet for a limited duration. Guests need to login using a voucher they can either buy or obtain for free at the reception. OPNsense has build-in support for vouchers and can easily create them on the fly. With this example we will show you how to setup the Guest Network for this purpose and setup a reception account for creating new vouchers.

Advanced

The Captive portal can also be combined with the category based web filtering of the proxy. This tutorial will explain how to combine both features.

Prerequisites

We will start configuration with a fresh OPNsense install, updated to the latest patch level (16.1.5_1 in our example). You will need a system with a minimum of 3 ports (LAN/WAN/GUESTNET) for this tutorial.

Good to know

As the Hotel/Camping setup is almost identical to the business setup we will start with that and after finishing add/change the specifics to match the Hotel Guest setup.

Step 1 - Configure Interface

For the Guest Network we will add a new interface. Go to Interfaces->Assignments And use the + to add a new interface. Press Save. The new interface will be called OPT1, click on [OPT1] in the left menu to change its settings.

Select Enable Interface and fill in the following data for our example:

Description GUESTNET A descriptive name for the interface
Block Private networks unselected  
Block bogon networks unselected  
IPv4 Configuration Type Static IPv4 Set a static IPv4 address for the example
IPv6 configuration Type None  
MAC address (Leave Blank)  
MTU (Leave Blank)  
MSS (Leave Blank)  
Speed and duplex Default You may also select the speed when known
Static IPv4 address 192.168.200.1/24 We will use this segment for our guests
IPv4 Upstream Gateway None  

Press Save and then Apply changes.

Step 2 - Configure DHCP Server

Go to Services->DHCP->Server and click on the tab GUESTNET.

Fill in the following to setup the DHCP server for our guest net (leave everything
else on its default setting):
Enable Checked Enable the DCHP server on GUESTNET
Range 192.168.200.100 to 192.168.200.200 Serve ip’s from this range
DNS servers 192.168.200.1 Supply a DNS with the lease
Gateway 192.168.200.1 Supply a gateway with the lease

Click Save.

Step 3 - Add Firewall Rules

Go to Firewall->Rules to add a new rule.

Now add the following rules (in order of prevalence):

Allow DNS

Allow the guests access to the DNS forwarder. Rule content (leave all other options default):

Action Pass Allow this traffic
Interface GUESTNET The GuestNet Interface
Protocol TCP/UDP  
Source GUESTNET net  
Destination GUESTNET address  
Destination port range DNS/DNS from DNS to DNS
Category GuestNet Basic Rules Category used for grouping rules
Description Allow DNS  

Click Save.

Allow Captive Portal Login

Action Pass Allow this traffic
Interface GUESTNET The GuestNet Interface
Protocol TCP  
Source GUESTNET net  
Destination GUESTNET address  
Destination port range 8000/10000 (other) used for the cp zones
Category GuestNet Basic Rules Category used for grouping rules
Description Allow Captive Portal Login  

Click Save.

Block Local Networks

Action Block Block this traffic
Interface GUESTNET The GuestNet Interface
Protocol any  
Source GUESTNET net  
Destination LAN net  
Category GuestNet Basic Rules Category used for grouping rules
Description Block Local Networks  

Click Save.

Action Block Block this traffic
Interface GUESTNET The GuestNet Interface
Protocol any  
Source GUESTNET net  
Destination GUESTNET address  
Category GuestNet Basic Rules Category used for grouping rules
Description Block Firewall Access  

Click Save.

Note

These rules are used to block access to our local LAN network and firewall access from the Guests. If you have multiple local networks then you need to block each of them with multiple rules or use a bigger subnet to cover them all.

Allow Guest Networks

Action Pass Allow this traffic
Interface GUESTNET The GuestNet Interface
Protocol any  
Source GUESTNET net  
Destination any  
Destination port range any  
Category GuestNet Basic Rules Category used for grouping rules
Description Allow Guest Network  

Click Save and then Apply changes

Your rules should look similar to the screenshot below:

../../_images/guestnet_fwrules.png

Step 4 - Create Captive Portal

Go to Services->Captive Portal->Administration

To add a new Zone press the + in the lower right corner of the form.

Note

When using multiple interfaces with the captive portal then each interface can have its own zone or multiple interfaces can share a zone.

For the Business setup we will start with the following settings:

Enabled Checked  
Interfaces GUESTNET Remove the default and add GUESTNET
Authenticate using (blank) Remove any default setting
Idle timeout 0 Disable Idle Timeout
Hard timeout 0 No hard timeout
Concurrent user logins Unchecked A user may only login once
SSL certificate none Use plain http
Hostname (leave blank) Used for redirecting login page
Allowed addresses (leave blank)  
Custom template none Use default template
Description Guest Network Choose a description for the zone

Save and the Apply

Step 5 - Create Template

The template feature is one of the most powerful features of OPNsense’s Captive Portal solution and it’s very easy to work with.

Lets create a custom landing page, to do so click on the tab Templates and click on the download icon in the lower right corner ( download ).

../../_images/template_download.png

Now download the default template, we will use this to create our own. Unpack the template zip file, you should have something similar to this:

../../_images/template_filelisting.png

Most files of the template can be modified, but some are default and may not be changes. Upon upload any changes to the files listed in exclude.list will be ignored. Currently these include the bootstrap java scripting and some fonts.

With the captive portal enabled the default screen looks like:

../../_images/default_login_no_authenticator.png

Lets change this default with a new logo and a welcome message, to this:

../../_images/mycompany_login.png

To do so use your favourite editor and open the index.html file to make the changes.

Lets make the following changes to the template:

  1. Change the logo to company-logo.png
  2. Remove the navigation bar on the top
  3. Remove the height and width from the <img> tag
  4. Add a welcome text
  5. Make a link to the company website

Find the following part:

<header class="page-head">
<nav class="navbar navbar-default" >
    <div class="container-fluid">
        <div class="navbar-header">
            <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">
                <img class="brand-logo" src="images/default-logo.png" height="30" width="150">
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
</nav>
</header>

And change to:

<header class="page-head">
    <div align="center">
      <a href="#">
          <img class="brand-logo" src="images/company-logo.png">
      </a>
      <h1>Welcome to My Company Guest Network.</h1>
      <h2>Feel free to use the guest network for profesional usage</h2>
      <h3>See our website for more details: <a href="https://www.opnsense.org">My Company</a></h3>
    </div>
</header>

Copy the company logo to the image directory. Now zip the template directory and upload the new template by pressing the + on the Template tab.

Download the example Template (full)

Enter a Template Name, for this example we use Company. Hit Upload ( upload )

To enable the captive portal on the GUESTNET interface just click on Apply.

Step 6 - Limit Guests Bandwidth

For our example we will reserve 10Mbps down and 1Mbps Up for the Guest Network’s Internet Access. This bandwidth will be shared evenly between connected clients.

Note

With sharing evenly we mean that if 10 users at the same time try to use as much bandwidth as possible then everyone gets 1/10th. So in our example that would be 1Mbps down stream (download). It is also possible to limit the traffic per user see also Setup Traffic Shaping

Go to: Firewall->Traffic Shaper->Settings.

Create a pipe for the Download by pressing the + in the lower right corner of the form and enter the following details:

Enabled Checked
bandwidth 10
bandwidth Metric Mbit/s
mask Destination
Description pipe_10Mbps_down

Click on Save changes. And add another pipe for the upload traffic.

Enabled Checked
bandwidth 1
bandwidth Metric Mbit/s
mask Destination
Description pipe_1Mbps_up

Click on Save changes.

Create the traffic shaper rules.Click on the tab Rules and press the + to do so.

First toggle the advanced mode (upper left corner of the form) and then fill in the following details (leave everything not specified on defaults):

sequence (leave on default)
interface WAN
interface 2 GUESTNET
direction in
target pipe_10Mbps_down
description Limit Guests download to 10Mbps

Click Save changes.

sequence (leave on default)
interface WAN
interface 2 GUESTNET
direction out
target pipe_1Mbps_up
description Limit Guests upload to 1Mbps

Click Save changes.

Now click on Apply to apply the changes.

Step 7 - Test Business GuestNet

Connect your PC or laptop to the Guest Network and start your favourite browser. Enter an address to browse to and you will be presented with the Login form we created with the template in the previous step. Click on login and start browsing.

To test your traffic shaper go to a speed test site such as http://www.speedtest.net/ After testing your result should be similar to this (if your internet connection has sufficient bandwidth).

../../_images/cp-traffic-shaping.png

Note

Keep in mind we have only one connected client in this test, so all reserved bandwidth will be available for our client.

Royal Hotel Example

From this point we will implement the Hotel/Camping solution. You need to follow step 1-7 first and choose the template you like to use for your guests.

This example will be for our “Royal Hotel”.

Step 8 - Add Voucher Server

To add a Voucher Server go to: System->Access->Servers and click on Add server in the top right corner of the screen.

Fill in:

Descriptive name Vouchers The name for your voucher server
Type Voucher  

Click on Save.

Step 9 - Create Vouchers

Go back to the Captive portal and select Vouchers (Services->Captive Portal->Vouchers). Click on Create Vouchers in the lower right corner of the form.

Lets create 1 Day vouchers for our guests:

../../_images/create_vouchers.png

Enter the Validity (1 day), the number of Vouchers and a Groupname (Wifi day pass f.i.). For the example we create 10 vouchers. Click on Generate.

A file will be generated called wifi day pass.csv. The content of this file looks like this:

username,password,vouchergroup,validity
"IgJw@Pqf","MLi+Sb7Ak#","Wifi day pass","86400"
"++?f[@i[","!m*)e(@;F,","Wifi day pass","86400"
"bbtK9mBk","f/jCDL3:)b","Wifi day pass","86400"
"iD%L[jLJ","I#FoZ#g!AY","Wifi day pass","86400"
"+4bA\E[I","CNavt@0ck+","Wifi day pass","86400"
"+,fg/\Sv","#22iIL-iQA","Wifi day pass","86400"
":;Pc\N#s","Y\HuG9vAN$","Wifi day pass","86400"
"00nLb=0Q","0*C_\_Nb_x","Wifi day pass","86400"
"PA$J0YHF","kp!q%9;m)g","Wifi day pass","86400"
"a,mCxbya","LcnCb#g/di","Wifi day pass","86400"

The content are:

username Username the guest needs to login with
password Password the guest needs to login with
vouchergroup The name of the group you created
validity The time the voucher will be valid in seconds

Warning

For security reasons the plain text password for the vouchers are NOT stored on the firewall.

This file can be used for creating nice guest vouchers (on paper) by just merging the cvs data with word, open office or any other dtp/text editor.

Create something like this:

../../_images/cp_royalhotel_voucher.png

You can select a database to and remove it entirely. This way you can create a voucher database for the arrival date of guest per guest group (week, midweek, weekend, etc.) and delete the full database when the guests have left.

Note

When a voucher is activated the time will be used regardless of the user being logged in or out. For a “used time” solution use a Radius server look at Setup FreeRADIUS for accounting

Step 10 - Voucher Authentication

Enable the voucher authentication by changing the zone settings. Go to the tab Zones and select the Guest Network by clicking on the pencil icon right next to it.

Change Authenticate using from an empty field to Vouchers.

When done click Save changes and the Apply to apply the new settings.

Now users will see the login form as part of your template:

../../_images/cp_voucher_login.png

Check Sessions

To check the active sessions go to Services->Captive Portal->Sessions Our current session looks like this:

../../_images/cp_active_sessions.png

You can drop an active session by clicking on the trashcan.

Note

Notice the selection box at the upper right corner, with this you can select the right zone when you have configured more than one.

Check Voucher Status

You can check the validity and active status of a voucher by going to the voucher page of the captive portal (Services->Captive Protal->Vouchers) and select the correct database (Wifi day pass in our example).

../../_images/cp_active_vouchers.png

Note

The state valid means it is activated but still valid.

Advanced - Session popup

Lets create a Session Popup so user can see some details about there session and Logout. For this feature we will use OPNsense’s build-in api calls.

In particular we will use the following api call (for zone id 0):

/api/captiveportal/access/status/0/

The response on this api call looks like this (for an active session):

{"userName":"IgJw@Pqf",
"macAddress":"10:dd:b1:bc:75:46",
"acc_session_timeout":14095,
"authenticated_via":"Vouchers",
"packets_out":2834,
"bytes_in":512869,
"last_accessed":1457527526,
"zoneid":0,
"sessionId":"npd5bd6SIVQeMfIbWBdong==","
startTime":1457526930.1719,
"bytes_out":1322351,
"ipAddress":"192.168.200.100",
"packets_in":3181,
"clientState":"AUTHORIZED"}

It would go a bit to far to explain standard html and java scripting used for our simple popup, but a full demo template can be downloaded:

Download the example Template (with popup)

The demo includes a new file called session_popup.html with all the logic to show the time left on the voucher and a logout button. As well as a simple update to our index.html page to call the popup on a successful login. The latter looks like this (shown with a bit of context):

// redirect on successful login
if (data['clientState'] == 'AUTHORIZED') {
    window.open("session_popup.html","Session Status & Logout","width=400, height=400");
../../_images/captiveportal_popup.png

Advanced - CLI Session Status

OPNsense has a very powerful CLI that is particularly useful for debugging purposes. For this example we will use the cli to list the status off all active sessions.

Type the following on the cli prompt to do so (for zone id 0):

configctl captiveportal list_clients 0

The output will be something similar to this:

../../_images/cli_list_captiveportalsessions.png