Getting a WiFi Extender to work in an RV park with a capture portal setup

MarkEHansen · 10-08-2019, 07:40 AM

We have a local network in our trailer and connect it to the park's WiFi using a WiFi extender. Using this, we "configure" the extender by connecting it to our laptop, configure it (including the password), then connect to the Internet.

Things are a bit different when a captive portal is used, however. The WiFi network is not secured. In general, you connect to it and then when accessing the Internet, you are directed to their "portal" page where you must agree to their terms, provide the password, etc. Then, you have access to the Internet.

I have 2 WiFi extenders, and I can connect either to a normal "secured" WiFi, but I can't get either to work on the "captive portal" version.

Does anyone know how to do this? I could sure use some advice - other than what I should or should not be doing while on vacation

Thanks,

KSH · 10-08-2019, 08:17 AM

I think the captured portal keeps track of you by mac address, so if you set your laptop to the same mac as your extender, connect and accept the terms, then disconnect, remove the mac setting from your laptop and then turn on the extender, it might connect. Then you can connect to your extender.

KSH · 10-08-2019, 08:24 AM

Look through here. Some models support it natively.

https://www.google.com/search?source...60.bu34hRlTo_8

**sourdough** · 10-08-2019, 08:36 AM

Just went through this couple of months ago. At that location the ISP told me that I had to have a browser so that I could access the "portal" page and log in. Tried a Roku but they don't have the browser. Bought the Amazon Fire Stick with the built in browser and worked great. In fact, after I bought that one I bought 4 more because I liked how it worked and now have them in a couple of my houses, the RV and one for traveling.

If I recall I had to use the laptop to navigate to and thru the portal page then connect the Fire Stick to the laptop using it as a hotspot.

MarkEHansen · 10-08-2019, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KSH

I think the captured portal keeps track of you by mac address, so if you set your laptop to the same mac as your extender, connect and accept the terms, then disconnect, remove the mac setting from your laptop and then turn on the extender, it might connect. Then you can connect to your extender.

I think you're right. I wanted to try this, but can't seem to spoof the MAC address on my Wifi adapter. The setting is there for my hard-wired ethernet adapter, but not for the Wifi adapter. I looked in both the device settings and in the registry settings (after finding the correct registry key).

I'm running Windows 7 - any ideas how to set the MAC address for a WiFi adapter?

Also, when I view the information videos on setting one of these up, it shows that the WiFi extender connects to the park's WiFi and you get an IP address and everything. In my case, I don't get an IP address. I think the WiFi extender is not properly connecting to the park's WiFi. Why would this be?

Note that without an IP address provided by the Park's network, I would have no hope of getting to their captive portal page to authenticate - which is probably why that's happening.

MattHelm21 · 10-08-2019, 03:51 PM

I have the WiFiRanger Core router which is a WiFi extender. In the case of a portal, I log into the WiFi ranger via its secure wireless network and configure it to connect to the unsecured wireless network. In some cases, the WiFiRanger prompts me for a hotspot login but this usually does not work. I then open a second browser window on the laptop connected to the secure network behind the WiFiRanger and when it tries an Internet page, the park’s hotspot page opens and when I accept the terms, all devices on my secure network gain access.

The only issue is that it is usually important on this type of network to have some device which sends a heartbeat of some type as hotspots frequently time out connectivity due to inactivity and request re-authentication of the terms. In my case, for the dog I have an Arlo camera system which keeps checking in with the cloud server.

MarkEHansen · 10-08-2019, 03:56 PM

Yes, this is how I expect it to work as well. The problem is that once I connect to the park's WiFi using the WiFi extender, I see that I was not given any IP settings, so no IP address. Perhaps it's this park's captive portal that is not working properly?

John&Genny · 10-11-2019, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkEHansen

Yes, this is how I expect it to work as well. The problem is that once I connect to the park's WiFi using the WiFi extender, I see that I was not given any IP settings, so no IP address. Perhaps it's this park's captive portal that is not working properly?

That’s possible. Have you tried connecting directly to the portal using a Laptop or other device to make sure the portal is actually working? If it works using a Laptop, it should also work using your extender.

We have a WiFi Ranger Elite that we use at our campground that uses a filtered (portal) network. When we first tried connecting, it brought up the portal page where we subscribed for the WiFi services we wanted and after that, it’s been working pretty well. No problems streaming for our Roku

I use a 14 dbi yagi wifi antenna mounted on a Flagpole buddy that I can turn and get wifi when most people can’t. I’m a ham radio operator so we love playing with technology and antennas

GeekSquadOfUn · 10-11-2019, 05:16 AM

Have you tried the option "Clone your MAC address" ?

That could hide your real MAC address from the portal, except for the 1st one that logged in.

Just an idea.

MarkEHansen · 10-11-2019, 06:03 AM

Yes, we can connect to the captive portal using either our phones or laptop, but not with either of our WiFi extender devices. With one (the Netgear WNCE3001, which is a few years old) it just won't connect at all. With the newer TPLink RE200, it will connect, but in looking at the connection information, we're not provided with an IP and other connection info, so there is no way to reach the captive portal page.

I wanted to try some other work arounds, but we had to leave the park early

So I'm afraid this issue is dead until I can get back there for another try.

Thanks everyone for your ideas!

MarkEHansen · 10-11-2019, 06:43 AM

Oh, and I tried to use the MAC Address work around, but was unable to find a way to change the MAC on either my laptop or on the WiFi Extender.

I was going to call the park's support folks and see if they would let me just give them my MAC address, but alas, we had to leave early and didn't get a chance.

LHaven · 10-20-2019, 08:27 PM

If your wireless system is set up correctly, what you should see is that your central unit will connect ("register") to the campground's system, and then everything will hang in happy abeyance until the first user device registered to your central unit attempts to get onto the net, at which time the campground system will demand the access password. Once the password is entered on the first device, none of your other devices should need to present it. As far as the campground is concerned, the single device at your central unit's MAC address has successfully provided the challenge response. It has no way of knowing how many physical devices are behind that.

This requires your rig's "internal" access point to be BRIDGED to the unit that connects to the campground, and that unit needs to perform NAT. Most of them will be, but because anything that can go wrong will, it's quite possible that some of these commercially produced units will use some other weird architecture that won't handle this correctly.

MarkEHansen · 10-21-2019, 02:53 AM

Thanks. As I said, when I connect with the WiFi Extender, I'm not given an IP address. When I check the connection info in the extender, it shows that it is connected, but there is no IP, DNS, Gateway, etc. None of the stuff normally provided by the DHCP server is there. This makes it impossible for anything to get to the captive portal page.

I don't know if it's my WiFi Extender (I tried two different ones) or something strange with the park's captive WiFi system. I don't have access (yet) to another captive portal system to try. Some day, I'll be able to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks again.

LHaven · 10-21-2019, 09:02 AM

It's technically impossible even to run the captive portal challenge without first having been given an IP address and a gateway, and probably a DNS address as well.

If you've only tested this with one campground, I would suspect the campground system to be at fault, although no one else should be able to get onto it either. If other people are using the captive portal challenge effectively, or if you've had this problem at more than one campground, then I would suspect something is strange with your in-rig central unit not handling this type of situation properly.

For example I've encountered one particular brand of "self-configuring" home mesh networking units that actually need to communicate with the company central server in order to operate at all, and if the central server is down or unreachable, you haven't got any Internet service in your house. Throwing a "walled garden" DNS between these units and the company central server could easily result in symptoms similar to those you describe.

MarkEHansen · 10-21-2019, 09:43 AM

I've only been able to try connecting to a captive portal at this one park. I've not (yet) had access to any others. Other devices connect just fine (like a laptop or smart phone). I don't know why the WiFi Extenders won't connect properly - I wish I did.

LHaven · 10-21-2019, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkEHansen

I've only been able to try connecting to a captive portal at this one park. I've not (yet) had access to any others. Other devices connect just fine (like a laptop or smart phone). I don't know why the WiFi Extenders won't connect properly - I wish I did.

Can I ask who makes it? Being in the business, I just cobbled up my own – I kept it real basic and it handles pretty much all these situations simply by the strategy of not getting in the way. It could be that yours is trying to do something more complicated (in the interest of presenting a more understandable UI) and fails.

MarkEHansen · 10-21-2019, 09:55 AM

The WiFi Extenders?
One is the Netgear WNCE3001 (which is pretty old). The other is a TPLink RE200.
These both work just fine connecting to my home (standard) WiFi.

Note that I'm no longer at the park, so I won't be able to test anything...

LHaven · 10-21-2019, 10:45 AM

The TP Link appears to be a repeater-type extender, not a client device with boosted signal. This device is designed to be installed halfway between the campground router and your rig, which makes it less than optimal for an RV application. It's probably doing a lot of extra garbage under the covers which is interfering with the captive portal operation.

Maybe I want to spend some of my copious spare time in retirement designing an RV suitable configuration of the directional MikroTik SXT. My current lashup has one of these cabled to a smaller unit that serves as the access point inside the rig, but using recent enhancements in their software, I could now do the whole job with the single directional unit, using the backsplash lobes to service the rig occupants omnidirectionally.

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