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I hope this question is appropriate for this forum. I am looking to create a public hotspot for a restaurant, where the access to the internet is restricted until the user has registered through a specific website.

Just like starbucks, hotels, mc donalds, etc do.

I don't expect to get the whole answer to my question here, but I just want to know in which direction to look, I have googled a hundred things and I have not found any answer, not even a company that offers what I am looking for. What is the technical words that I need to find some solutions?

I am guessing that a special router with a special wireframe will allow the users to get access to a server with a specific IP, domain or url. Then the server must somehow communicate with the router indicating that the user has been registered and giving full access to the internet.

This is how I think it works, if it is ok I don;t know, what kind of router I need or how to communicate between a router and a server I don't know, I can't find anything online.

I will deeply appreciate the help. Thanks

Eddy XP
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2 Answers2

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A simple open Wi-Fi network with a captive portal will do the trick. You can do it quite easily with pfSense if you have some background knowledge in networks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal

http://www.pfsense.org/

mimipc
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You want what is called a "captive portal". DD-WRT offers some suggestions here http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Captive_Portal and it can be run on commodity hardware easily enough.

MikeAWood
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  • There are a number of wireless router devices that have captive portal functionality built-in, too. OpenWRT and DD-WRT are nice, but the OP may not want to roll their own solution. – Evan Anderson Jul 10 '13 at 19:50
  • @EvanAnderson, true, but he was asking for some suggestions of where to look and what software and hardware he'd need. DD-WRT came to mind immediately as a place to start, as you suggested, there are loads of commonly used others. – MikeAWood Jul 10 '13 at 19:53
  • @EvanAnderson, Mikes answer geve me the word that I was looking for "captive portal" I have found so many things now! thanks a lot. But what you said is very interesting, what routers do you know that have captive portal functionality built-in? Thanks. – Eddy XP Jul 10 '13 at 20:00