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I have seen networks (e.g. in airports and hotels) that do not require a password to allow your mobile device to actually connect to the wireless network, however when you try to navigate to any website, it directs your browser to a specific page where you are required to enter a username and password or some sort key to go to any website.

I would like to set something like this up on our business network so that we could allow every person who wants to connect to have a different password and determine when and if that password expires. As it is now, we have a network-wide connection key, but if anyone were to guess/steal it, they would be able to connect indefinitely.

So my questions are:

Q1. What is this particular technology called?

Q2. What hardware/software is required to set this up?

Q3. Since a password is not required to actually connect, is the connection unencrypted?

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This question is way too broad for a Q&A site. The technology you're looking for is "Captive Portal" in conjunction with 802.1x. I suggest that you do some reasearch on those topics first, and then ask specific technical questions on this site and on serverfault.com (depending on the topic, software or network hardware). –  pauska Oct 3 at 21:40

closed as too broad by Teun Vink, Brett Lykins, Mike Pennington Oct 4 at 22:27

There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be too long for this format. Please add details to narrow the answer set or to isolate an issue that can be answered in a few paragraphs.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

1 Answer

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Q1. What is this particular technology called?

Q2. What hardware/software is required to set this up?

Q3. Since a password is not required to actually connect, is the connection unencrypted?

A1. See Also: "Captive Portal"

A2. Various systems support this -- it's a long list. Check with your vendor.

A3. Correct. Unless they are given a "password" (aka. pre-shared key), the traffic is unencrypted.

(this is not technically a network-engineering question)

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