Installation Guide

How to Setup Your Own Hotspot with MIKROTIK routers

Prequisites:

- Please make sure your Mikrotik device is running at least RouterOS version 6.48.6. You can find more information on how to check and upgrade RouterOS at the official Mikrotik Wiki. The latest what we can recommend is version 6.49.1. DO NOT USE version 7.x yet unless your router must be run on 7.x (like the RB5009)

- Please make sure that you have Winbox available on your computer (unofficial Mac version can be downloaded from here) – WebFig is not going to work with our setup method

- Please make sure that you have a working Internet connection, else the configuration will fail. Plug in your Internet uplink cable to port 1 (ether1) and connect your computer to one of the unused LAN ports of the Mikrotik router. If you plan to use port2 as hotspot port use port3 during the installation. (The configuration must be done with a wired connection, it will not work wireless.)

1.Preparing the router

- Start your router and wait until it boots (you should hear a couple of beeps), then open Winbox. Your router should appear in the Neighbours list – if not, you can either click Refresh until it appears or just type the MAC address of your device into the Connect To field (You can find the MAC address on the bottom of the casing or on the box).

- If you see the following dialogue box, then click on the Remove configuration button:

- If you haven't seen it, go to System → Reset Configuration → Tick the No Default Configuration checkbox, leave the rest unticked and click on Reset Configuration.

Your router will reboot, so when it becomes available, please connect to it again.

2. Connecting the router to our service

- Log in to the Control Center on our website, and go to the Locations page (Manage/Locations). Click on the location name for the hotspot information page.

- Click on Modify Hotspot Data & Settings, then in the Splash Page Settings change the Internal Login/Logout URL Set to Mikrotik, then click Submit.

- Once you're back to the Location Detials page, scroll down to the ROUTER SETUP COMMAND FOR THIS LOCATION section, select Mikrotik, then verify the settings there if you want to setup a wireless hotspot (set wlan1 for the hotspot interface) or a hotspot gateway (set ether2 for the hotspot interface), then copy the setup commands (You can use the Highlight Text button and right-click on the script, then select copy).

- In Winbox, look for New Terminal in the left menu and click on it, then paste the commands into the new window appearing either by right-clicking into the terminal window and selecting paste or with the Shift + Insert key combination (please wait until the prompt is displayed).

- Once the script has finished (make sure you see an empty prompt, else just press Enter to execute the last command), you can close this window and set a router password under System → Password.

In rare occasions the hotspot isn't working after the script has finished. In this case just restart the router (either by System → Reboot or by unplugging it from the mains for a minute).

3. For White Label operators

If you are a White Label operator, you need to copy and edit two files from the hotspot folder on your device. Click on Files, and drag & drop login.html and alogin.html onto your desktop. Open them in a text editor and replace customer.hotspotsystem.com with your White Label hotspot FQDN. Save the files and drag them back making sure that they are in the hotspot folder. Then open a New Terminal and issue the following command: /ip hotspot walled-garden add dst-host=*.yourcompany.com where yourcompany.com is your white label domain.

4. Further optional configuration

If you would like to add more interfaces to the hotspot service (or to the local network), then go to Bridge, then switch to the Ports tab. Here you can see the ports already assigned to the hotspot service (HS_bridge) and to the local network (bridge-local). Click on the + sign if you want to add more ports to these bridge interfaces or select the port you would like to remove and click on the – button.