Pi-star connecting through WiFi Captive Portals

I recently had an interesting time trying to support a friend with a friend who was on a cruise ship with his MMDVM hotspot.

Captive portals can create an issue when roaming with our hotspots.... i.e. easy when you have a GUI and a web browser !

The solution - go back to basics. Use the old ancient Lynx browser from the Linux-base command line.

i.e.

- Log in via SSH or the Web-Console (Configuration / Expert / SSH Access).
- Change to Read-write file system (rpi-rw)
- Update the package list (sudo apt update)
[ - Update all packages (supo apt dist-upgrade <-- Optional and potentially dangerous step !) ]
- Deploy Lynx (sudo apt install lynx).

- Connect to the captive-portal-WiFi network (use the standard WiFi connection steps)

The next steps can be a little complex and not always consistent; a bit of research noting addresses and URL's that you are auto-redirected to before connecting the pistar device may be important.

Note that 99.9% of the time the gateway on the network will also be the captive portal:

- netstat-nr <-- at the terminal prompt will offer this address.

Then use the command-line text "Lynx" browser that you deployed earlier with the address/URL researched to enter the captive portal login information (often which is just an "i agree to terms" button click) !

i.e. lynx http://192.168.51.1 <-- Assuming that is the address/gateway that corresponds to the captive portal server !

Wullah ! And you should be able to use pistar hotspot with many captive portals and free internet services (i.e. "Maccas" and "The King") that allow more than just port 80 access. Yet I also warn that this method is far from easy for most and may not work under all circumstances !

I ended up adding a travel router to my arsenal while traveling with my hotspot. I use a GLinet AR-750 running official OpenWrt (not the OpenWrt version that comes on the router out of the box).

https://amzn.to/2TGAAua

I have the router set up with an SSID on the LAN side that I configure my hotspot to connect to (I try to use Ethernet wherever possible), then I connect another device (phone/computer) to the LAN side of the router.

From a computer/phone, I open a browser and do the following:

1. Configure the wireless settings on the router to connect to the public Wi-Fi (yes - the Wi-Fi support in the router allows for multiple active SSIDs)
2. Satisfy the requirements imposed by the captive portal

Once I've passed the captive portal, then any device on the LAN side of the router can connect to the Internet.