Smoothwall/ iPad/ Captive portal

[Maxamoth]

Hi

 

Just hoping someone will be able to help me with my Apple iPad/SmoothWall problem.

 

We are currently running a transparent proxy with captive portal setup, where students and teachers can login an use the internet on their devices around the school. We are looking for some iPads which are enrolled to use the same wireless network with the same situation of having to login to use the internet. But this is where the problems start to occur.

 

Doing a bit of reading on various sites the iPads on occasion want to ping out to a one of Apples websites but at random from 200+ websites to confirm that they have an internet connection. But hits the captive portal and with no login details then fails and turns off the wireless on the ipad, this is also the same problem on setup screen. Which means the iPad does not receive updates from APN to report the server for changes and also when in the science students use the wireless to connect to some sensor devices we have but can’t use them without have to reconnecting to the wireless and login to use the internet because the iPad wants to check to see if there is an internet connection otherwise will it off. Airprint is also an issue when not logged into the captive portal because again Wi-Fi gets disabled when not authenticated.

 

We need to create a rule that looks for User Agent UA “CaptiveNetworkSupport”. If transparent proxy sees this, it should allow the http request through the filter unauthenticated.

 

Is there a setting in SmoothWall, a rule I can write or anyone has or a way of reading the User Agent which will help me bypass the captive portal using unauthorised IP so the iPads get the reply they want which is “success” but whilst still being able to filter the internet for student and the other rules which are applied?

 

Hope this all makes sense

 

-David

[MicrodigitUK]

@tom_newton ? @OB1 ? @AMLightfoot ?

[AMLinington]

We believe there has been a workaround implemented in the Smoothwall back end to resolve this. Please make sure your Smoothwall is fully up to date. But we believe this shouldn't be an issue for you. Have you tested an iPad on your network yet?

[Maxamoth]

Thank you for getting back to me on this @AMLightfoot. We are currently one update behind so we are sitting on update 72 with 73 waiting to be done. So am is there something I am missing which I haven't enabled? Or is the update for the workaround in update 73?

 

We have had one iPad to test on the network and it works fine once someone has logged in to get past the captive portal and keep the Wi-Fi on.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Maxamoth

[Maxamoth]

Whilst looking around a bit further on the internet I came across this and it is what I would like to do:

 

https://smoothwall.uservoice.com/forums/146418-guardian-filtering/suggestions/2869934-user-agent-as-policy-object

 

Is there any temp work around? @tom_newton ? @OB1 ? @AMLightfoot ?

[AMLinington]

Whilst looking around a bit further on the internet I came across this and it is what I would like to do:

 

https://smoothwall.uservoice.com/forums/146418-guardian-filtering/suggestions/2869934-user-agent-as-policy-object

 

Is there any temp work around? @tom_newton ? @OB1 ? @AMLightfoot ?

 

Not as far as I'm aware. User agent definition is a bit hit and miss because it can be spoofed