Getting non-captive portal devices working in student accommodation

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This isn't a question because I worked it out. But I found it difficult to search for. So I thought I would document it here for others to be able to come across with a search. Basically I'm just adding this so Google finds it to help others. There may be simpler ways of doing it but it's how I did it.

Problem

Last year my daughter lived in student accommodation on campus. We never could get her Nintendo Switch, Roku stick (Netflix, Prime Video, Now TV, etc, etc) and Google Nest/Home working. This year she is in private student accommodation but had the same problem. There is free wifi in the building and an ethernet port in the wall. The ethernet port didn't seem to be active. The free wifi implements a captive portal system where you connect to the wifi without a password. But then you need to create an account and login on a webpage. Without logging in to the web page you can only access the internet providers pages and are blocked from any other access. So no other web pages work and no other devices can connect without logging in. Her Macbook, ipad and phone connect to the internet absolutely fine but no other devices would.

So, she could watch Netflix, etc, on her phone, ipad and Macbook. But she couldn't watch it on the big TV or listen to the radio on her Google Home. These devices simply wouldn't connect to the captive portal system.

We asked at the front desk and they couldn't help. We also raised a ticket to the internet provider asking how it could be done but they didn't respond after a few days.


Solution

1) I have a GL.iNet Mango travel router.
2) I set this up as a repeater. So it connects to the free wifi in the room and then has its own wifi SSID to connect to (it also has an ethernet port but the port in the wall didn't seem to be active).
3) The Mango initially behaved the same way as other devices. It could not access any data because there was no way for it to login to the captive portal page.
5) I then accessed my daughters account page on the internet providers website. One of the options was to manage devices. I could see all devices connected to the free wifi including their MAC address. I could delete or add MAC addresses but adding the router MAC address for the Mango router didn't solve the issue.
4) So I logged into the free wifi using my laptop and authenticated it using the captive portal web page.
5) I went back to the account page and found my laptops MAC address.
6) I logged into the Mango router and set it up to clone the MAC address of my fully authenticated laptop.
7) This worked for a short time but the Mango router would disconnect after about 30 mins.
8) I then logged back into the Mango router and set it to override DNS settings. This stopped it timing out. I don't know why this made a difference but it was a tip I found on a different article.

Now she can simply connect any device to our own GL.iNet Mango travel router without needing to go through the captive portal page. The Roku stick works for streaming TV and the Google Home works for a radio in her room and setting alarms etc. It has locked up a couple of times but restarting the Mango router fixed the issue and it has been running fine again for several days now. I think the lockup was an issue with the Mango router rather than the solution so I might get her a better router if it does it again. The Mango is only a £29 cheap travel router.


Summary

Create a wifi repeater using your own router. Clone the MAC address from a fully authenticated device. Override DNS settings.

As I said at the start, there may be a more official way to connect these devices. But the wifi provider hadn't replied to our support ticket asking how. I also found quite a few people online looking for a similar solution. So I thought this might be useful. I also did pay the internet provider for the unlimited devices add on. I didn't have to because I could connect unlimited devices to the Mango router. But it was cheap and I wasn't trying to cheat them out of money; I was simply trying to get her devices connected in a way that worked despite the captive portal.

 
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Travel router always is the best way getting around this. I had an old TP-Link travel router which was also cheap and did the same job. This also applies to hotel WiFi with a similar system too. However I would be careful doing this in student accommodations, these sort of things can be against their IT policy and could get you in trouble. For private accommodations rules are usually a little more relaxed but still worth checking just in case.
 
Travel router always is the best way getting around this. I had an old TP-Link travel router which was also cheap and did the same job. This also applies to hotel WiFi with a similar system too. However I would be careful doing this in student accommodations, these sort of things can be against their IT policy and could get you in trouble. For private accommodations rules are usually a little more relaxed but still worth checking just in case.
Partly the reason I haven't mentioned the internet provider and also did pay for the unlimited devices. They also haven't come back to us on our support ticket asking for a proper solution. But noted thank you.
 
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I thought I would update this thread with my latest experience. The GL.iNet Mango router didn't prove to be stable. It would occasionally disconnect. I suspect this was because it's a very cheap low power device and, for reasons I didn't get to the bottom of, would lose connection to the building wifi. Then devices connected to the Mango would sometimes not recover even after the Mango reconnected. I have since replaced it with a GL.iNet AXT1800. I could also have cloned the MAC address on this router because the disconnects didn't appear to be related to MAC cloning. But the AXT1800 has captive portal support on the router itself. So it setup without issue and has been stable.

I also setup the AXT1800 to connect to my VPN server at home to avoid the issue of Netflix blocking her device after a few weeks of being on a different IP and setup some VPN connections to other countries should she want to stream from services in other geolocations.

So the lessons I learned from this are:

1) Cloning the MAC does work.
2) The Mango is good for occasional use but has limitations when using it for a long period of time. However, it was key in helping me to experiment further. It was the gateway drug :)
3) The AXT1800, while a lot more expensive, is perfectly suited to the job and a great little router.

Again, just documenting my experiences for others who may come across this thread if they have the same issues.
 
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