In this article

Use this article to understand how the DNSFilter Roaming Client works with captive portals, including troubleshooting suggestions for when the captive portal does not populate or connect to the Wi-Fi network.  

A captive portal is a webpage that the user of a public network is required to view and interact with before they can access the network. Think airport, hotel, or coffee shop Wi-Fi login pages terms of agreements. 

In most circumstances, no action is required when connecting to captive portals with the Roaming Client installed. The Roaming Client will default to open a login window without issue.

There has been an attempt to standardize captive portals in RFC8908. 

In some situations, usually where DNS is permitted through the hotel or airline network, the Roaming Client may not default to open and, in turn, cause issues either browsing to the necessary captive portal login page or connecting to the Wi-Fi network behind it. 

The Roaming Client may interfere with the captive portal by redirecting DNS away from the network-provided DHCP server, therefore avoiding HTTP redirection to the login form.

This could lead to the internet being blocked while not being able to log in to the captive portal.

Captive Portal login page doesn't appear automatically 

Sometimes the login page for the captive portal doesn't appears automatically.

Try these troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue. Any of these methods can prompt the captive portal login window to open:

• Reopen a browser window and browse to any domain (e.g. https://www.dnsfilter.com/) 
• Turn off and on the device's Wi-Fi
• Re-establish the network connection
  • Remove/forget the network
  • Turn off and on the device's Wi-Fi
  • Re-add the network
• Restart the device

As of v1.8.2 the macOS Roaming Client has improved this compatibility.

If a login window does not automatically open, click the DNSFilter status menu icon and select Access Captive Network. This forces the login open in a browser window. 

Add domain suffix to Local Domains 

If there are issues connecting to the network, adding the domain suffix to the Local Domains list on the DNSFilter dashboard will resolve this issue.

Remember to also add IPs for local resolvers that are not public DNS servers (like Google's 8.8.8.8). Add IPs for the DNS server provided by DHCP. 

If you add known airline or hotel portals to your Local Domains list before the user travels in advance, this will prevent this issue from arising.

Captive Portal List

We comprised this list of domains used for hotels or airline Wi-Fi which can be added to your Local Domains. This may not be a complete list, as this is still a work in progress. If there is a want to bulk add multiple domains to multiple organizations, please reach out to support, and they can assist with this.

Airlines & Transportation

Hotels

Miscellaneous

Comment below to request Wi-Fi captive portal domains added to this list.