I want to create a router that does nothing but display a (local) splash page as soon as someone connects and then fires up a browser. I'm not talking about a captive portal, etc. this won't provide internet service or forward to a web page. It should present itself as an unsecured access point and display a splash page as soon as someone connects to it then fires up a browser - much like captive portal functionality - except there will be no login and/or no further action. Just display the splash page and done.
Can anyone please provide me some basic guidance on how to accomplish this? Or maybe point me toward an existing application that could easily be modified?
Without a browser request, either driven by the user, or by the OS (such as Apple's "captive portal" page or Android's notification), simply connecting to a network can't "force" a browser to open a page by choice of the network's operator without software of some sort being installed on each and every client.
If that would be possible, it would be a horrible security flaw in the OS and/or application.
Thanks, jeff. When I go to Safeway and connect to their guest wifi network on my iPhone, it opens my browser and takes me right to their Terms of Use page. How do they manage that?
It is a feature of the OS, which "protects" you from potentially malicious networks by detecting that the DNS has mis-routed you prior to you making an explicit browser request, and then opens the forced-redirect of HTTP traffic in a "safe" (hopefully sandboxed) environment.
Use the nodogsplash package. Configure it so there is no logon button.
When you connect to a wifi network with an iPhone, even if you don't have a web browser open, the OS still tries to http a small file from somewhere at apple.com. If the file is not as expected (i.e. it is a captive portal), iOS opens a mini browser for you to interact with the captive portal. Android does basically the same thing.
If you know a bit of programming -- have a look at the sources of the fakeinternet package. It does almost* what you want, you should be able to tweak it to achieve desired outcome.
@mk24 - Thanks for this suggestion! I installed nodogsplash and it gets me close (kinda). When I connect to it with my iPhone, it does not open a mini browser. I have to go to the router's IP address to see the splash page. I thought maybe it was because I still had internet access via the cell towers but even putting my phone in airplane mode (with wifi on) didn't fix it. I didn't change nodogsplash.conf (It didn't appear to exist) should the default values work properly? Any further suggestions?
@stangri - I don't have enough ram left to install fakeinternet. I'd have to uninstall nodogsplash first. If I'm reading it right, though, I can't see how it would do what I want it to (or how I can tweak it).
It has the code to prevent clients from using device's internet connection and it has the code to send custom replies to what iOS/Android/Kindle Fire devices usually request.
There're many ways to skin a cat tho, use whatever you find easier.
For that matter, anything will less than 16 MB of flash and 128 MB of RAM is going to be a challenge now, and likely to be "obsolete" and "unsupportable" within a couple years.
Careful with such statements.
Where are the reports that with 8MB flash you can hardly install any package?
Where are the reports that 64MB frequently lead to OOM errors?