What does it mean "portal detect" firmwares?

ponzi1 · 2020-01-19T05:23:15.087Z

What is the “portal-detect” firmwares I see in this place: GL.iNet download center

There does not exist explanations for different firmwares so I can not know.

I read Readme.txt but it is not helpful for this: https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/download.gl-inet.com/firmware/ar750s/testing/Readme.txt?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJCYGKSHF3TMIA7BQ%2F20200119%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200119T051945Z&X-Amz-Expires=900&X-Amz-Signature=02455bdbbefcdd48892ff21897ff052c4be0caa56d86f3347bdd97dbcc501f9a&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host

Thank you.

alzhao · 2020-01-22T03:02:18.915Z

When you are in a hotel when there is a captive portal, you have to disable your vpn and dns protection to get you authenticated via the portal. At that time, you data is leaked. Also, most user has difficult to set up and it is boring.

We have a daemon that detect if there is a captive portal. When there is, it will disable vpn and dns protection without leaking your data. When you get authenticated via the portal, vpn and dns will be restored.

We tested and it works in our testing environment. But the problem is that it is not efficient (like it may takes 30 to 40 seconds to detect) and does not work in all situations. So we do not have this in our default firmware.

Now because we have our smartphone app, we would rather to get this work with the app. So when there is a captive portal, your app will notify you and you need to use your smartphone to let the router works in portal detection mode. Using this it can improve user experience:

The user knows what is happening when there is no Internet.
The user can decide and get the portal page pop up quickly.
The user data is not leaked.

ipreferpie · 2020-01-22T07:48:01.335Z

Does the GL smartphone app work with the E750 for captive portal authentication?

DanielDefense · 2020-01-22T09:09:06.777Z

would need exactly that also for the B1300

alzhao · 2020-01-22T10:08:33.533Z

Not yet. This will be added later.

ponzi1 · 2020-01-23T03:06:26.054Z

@alzhao Oh thank you. If you call the firrmwares “captive portal detect” it could be much more easy to know this. “portal” is not really specific.

It could also be really good to have explanations for each firmwares. Just small documents so peoples don’t always have to be guessing every time.

juha · 2020-02-21T18:20:31.897Z

Just to get things clear. Portal detection is not implemented to latest Slate .100 firmware and i need to use that Portal Detect firmware?
Currently at the hotel and unable to see hotel captive portal at all. Ive used cellphone and MAC clone as trick to get internet for my Slate, but it isnt very effextive way
I just should revert firmware to Portal Detextion from test firmwares?

Johnex · 2020-02-21T21:04:02.635Z

Well no. You can use the “normal” firmware and just disable DNS Rebind Protection from the DNS settings menu. The portal detect firmware was trying to avoid that manual setting, to act like your phone does, popping up the login webpage automatically for you, but it didn’t work well and was scrapped.

juha · 2020-02-21T21:32:25.954Z

DNS Rebind is disabled, but im not able to enter portal credentials.
For me portal detect has been fine everytime, but for this trip updated the latest .100 firmware

Johnex · 2020-02-21T22:43:34.127Z

If you still want to use the portal detection feature, it will need to be compiled manually unfortunately. You will have to follow the guide here:

GitHub

GitHub - gl-inet/portal-detection

Contribute to gl-inet/portal-detection development by creating an account on GitHub.

juha · 2020-02-22T10:58:14.464Z

Thanks @Johnex! Your link did lead me to the third thing, DNS encryption to be disabled and now getting the portal popup!
So, all good and not going to need custom firmware

Just a note if anyone else having the ”issue”.

Disable all VPN connections in the router.
Disable DNS rebind protection. This is generally true but not for all portal.
Disable DNS encryption. In GL.iNet routers there are CloudFlare DNS.

DanielDefense · 2020-10-24T21:59:17.954Z

would be nice if we can optional use that feature in future „offical“ firmware releases. example at least for Slate or Beryl?

I mean, can you put it in official firmware „disabled“ so the user can quickly decide to test it (enabling it)???

best regards

asdffdsa1122 · 2020-10-24T22:23:35.676Z

maybe i am simplifying things but i have been dealing with captive portals for many years.
the procedure is quick and easy, not cellphone app, no complex software/firmware in the gl-inet needed.

i connect to the captive portal via my cellphone using web browser.
then on my gl-inet usb150, i set its macid to the macid of the cellphone using mac clone.

alzhao · 2020-10-25T01:17:27.667Z

Portal detecting is difficult. We have the source code on GitHub. Now it is COVID-19 everywhere and no way to test in different portals.

It also takes some time to detect the portal and not as efficient as manually set up.