How to Setup Your Own Hotspot with Ubiquiti airMAX Access Points
Warning! This guide is suitable for Ubiquiti airMAX products.
For older, discontinued 802.11 Ubiquiti products click here.
Important note: This solution requires a Hotspot Operator Account at HotSpotSystem.com. You can create an Operator Account here. If you would like to see what features you will be able to use with our solutions, click here. If you already have an Operator Account, then read on...
We are not liable nor responsible of the outcome of your firmware flashing procedure
1. Download the firmware from our site.
www.hotspotsystem.com/firmware/hss/Ubiquiti/Airmax/
2. Go to your Ubiquiti's system page.
If your router is in factory state set fixed IP address on your computer and connect tha LAN cable to the Ubiquiti AP. Set a fix IP on your machine like 192.168.1.2 (Netmask: 255.255.255.0, leave the gateway blank) and open the AP's page on 192.168.1.20 or 192.168.1.1 depending on the type of the device.
On the system tab, under Firmware Update, press Browse, and after selecting our firmware, click Update to confirm upoading a 3rd party firmware.
3. After successfull upgrade reset the router by pressing its reset button for more than 10 seconds.
4. After the "Upgrade and reset" your Ubiquiti will be available on your local network with DHCP address if you connect its WAN port to your local network. In our case we had a DHCP network with 192.168.19.x range and our Ubiquiti picked up the 192.168.19.109 addressm, the device can be reached on this IP from the same local office network. If your Ubiquiti is not connected to anywhere it can be reached on the dhcp fallback address which is 192.168.1.20 from the WAN side with a computer with static IP like 192.168.1.2 Devices with real additional LAN ports like AirRouter can be reached on 192.168.20.1 from the LAN.
You have to configure your local network. According to your local network or internet connection set your uplink under Network in the WAN Network Settings (dhcp,pppoe or static ip).
5. On the hotspot tab fill out your operator username in the Operator Name field and enter the number of the location too. In case of your first location enter 1.
Check 'Enable Hotspot' and leave 'Start on boot' checked.
NOTE #1: If you set up a Hotspot FREE BASIC OR SOCIAL location,
you MUST CHECK 'Combined splash page'.
NOTE #2: In case you are installing multiple routers in the same
location, you should use different location IDs. For the second routers you need to add
'_wds_1' to the location number, for the third router '_wds_2', etc. So
for example if you want to install the second router in location 3, the location ID should be set to
'3_wds_1'.
For Hotspot FREE SOCIAL locations: you need to add several domains/hosts to the allowed field in order to allow users to log in to there favorite social site. Please follow this article to add these domains/hosts to the whitelist.
When you make changes don't forget to 'Apply Settings' on the top of the page.
6. If you're setting up a WDS link without a hotspot instance running, you can still set to have the heartbeat feature in the router and get a heartbeat signal of it in the control center.
7. Under the WALLED GARDEN setting, you can specify IP addresses or hostname in the Allowed Hosts field. You can add your required domain name. In the Special start page field you should add your web page with the http:// prefix, e.g. http://www.mywebpage.com .
8. Start chilli service (on Services page, under STATUS) or reboot the your AP. This step will only work if your router is connected to the internet and has a valid internet connection.
Enjoy!
If you change the nasid and you apply the changes don't forget to stop and start the chilli service or reboot the device.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Modifying network or wireless network setup details can cause the router to drop the WLAN / Radio until the next reboot, which can be initiated via the GUI under System>Device Maintenance>Reboot, or simply unplugging the power supply and plugging it back.
Setting a walled garden URL with nonstandard characters like ?_ & or % may cause the walled garden function to stop working. In this case you should put the whole URL in quotation marks to work. Also for this specific case the URL will disappear from its field in the GUI, but it's still intact.
Should you have any more questions or problems, please read our Knowledgebase or contact Help Desk.
