How to Create a Pre-Login Portal for Busy Sites
Many busy Wi-Fi sites attract lots of visitors or passersby with smartphones in their pockets or purses who never actually log in. These ambient Wi-Fi sessions can create load on your router as it attempts to display your media-rich captive portal to each client as they grab DHCP leases.
The Pre-Login Portal is a slimmed-down captive portal that acts as a basic "CAPTCHA" or Turing test - it only displays your captive portal to users who request it, utilizing a minimum of router resources and bandwidth. This can reduce load on your Wi-Fi router in busy locations with lots of ambient Wi-Fi connections.
Enable Pre-Login Portal.
To enable the pre-login portal on a captive portal, select Portals from the main menu, then check the box next to "Enable Pre-Login Portal".
View Pre-Login Portal settings.
Once enabled you have the opportunity to customize the pre-login portal a bit. One thing you might want to do is provide your own graphic image.
The pre-login page limits the graphic size to 100K or less for fast performance. You can add the page image into the captive portal itself, or into SputnikNet Assets.
Select a small graphic.
Upload or select a small graphic image from Assets or from your captive portal Design page. This one has been just uploaded to Assets and is 9 kB in size (check "Size" under optional fields to view the image's size). Copy the "Quick Tag" link, return to the Portal Settings page and paste it into the "Pre-Login Page Image" field.
Customize your Pre-Login Portal.
Available customization options include:
Pre-Login Page Title: appears in the browser title bar.
Pre-Login Page Image: appears centered at the top of the page. Limited to 100K in size. Copy/paste the quick tag of a small image that you have uploaded either to Assets or to your captive portal's Design page.
Pre-Login Page Text: appears below the image, centered, without formatting.
Pre-Login Button Text: appears on the button used to login (to your full captive portal).
Once you've made your changes, click "Save Settings". New Wi-Fi sessions will be greeted by your pre-login portal before they get to your captive portal.
Preview your Pre-Login Portal.
To view your pre-login portal, click "Preview Pre-Login Page".