Services

I have a very strange problem:
A notebook with windows 7 home and IE 8 has problems login in.
The redirection to the captive portal fails most of the time. When it works the redirection to the Internet web site fails.
Sometimes it works though, but i can't find a scheme..
I have disabled everythink in windows 7, like firewall, virus scanner, changed the IE zones to low, addes the captive portal to secure hosts and so on, but I can't get ride of the effect.
Since 20 other machines with various operating systems and browsers work, the problem must be related to that one notebook.
I don't have another Windows 7 machine availble, but i am shure it has to do something with windows  7.
Any ideas???

Try installing Firefox browser in the same Win7 laptop and try. Use to have a problem like that in my own laptop - firefox solved it.

Hello,

We are facing the same problem on three organizations where we have implemented Captive Portal. I cannot confirm that the problem is only with Windows 7, because users that I know use only Windows 7.

We cannot solve this with saying to users that they should use Firefox - we don't know all the potential users (these are public wi-fis) so this will not be the solution.

Thank you!

Best wishes,
Marko

Check the IE security settings using an administrator account, however, I would say too: Use Firefox.

From what I read over here I think that It's not a problem with m0n0, it's a problem with default security settings on newer IE versions.

PS: You cannot find a pattern because of different security settings among users, and that could just look like quite random.

Give the users direct login link... ...however You should find a way to distribute that information.

I too run a public wifi hotspot with a large number of users. Clients who come to us with that problem, we advice them to use firefox and their problem gets fixed. Internet Explorer (regardless of which version of windows you are running, is full of hard-to-fix issues. These issues can only be properly dealt with by Microsoft. This is not a problem with M0n0.

Hello,

do you have any news about this problem? I'm sure you can understand that telling users to use Firefox is not a real solution.

Best wishes!

I too have these issues.  However it is not just Win 7 I have also run into the issue once with Mac and MANY TIMES with Vista. 

I implemented M0n0 a few years back at a small county airport and a county owned hospital and normally no issues what so ever but increasingly over the past year or so this issue comes up more and more.  I was lucky enough to run into a doctor I knew who was having the issue and I was able to try a few different options. 

First up FireFox and Chrome experienced the same issues.  I also added the redirect as a trusted page and disabled safe browsing.  Same issue.  This pretty much takes the browser out of the equation.

I also disabled any popup blockers, antivirus, and anti spyware.  Still no luck.

This was not an issue with DHCP in any fashion as a quick ipconfig /all verified and I was able to ping the M0n0wall (which is also the default gateway) I was also able to ping a laptop of mine that was also connected to the network.

Just to be safe due to other posts I also disabled IPv6.

The only thing I could do to work around this was to put his MAC in the bypass list for the captive portal.  This is a person I trust so no big deal but bypassing MAC's on a regular basis is not an option as it defeats the point of the captive portal.

This is also not an authentication issue as I just have a terms and conditions page that appears and they click ok (passing a blank username password combo)  No graphics of any sort just pure text.

I saw the device connected in M0n0 but something in Microsoft is blocking this and with each MS update the issues seem to increase.

Just as an idea I am a network engineer by trade and this is on a network I have implemented and maintained fully for 10 years so I feel comfortable that there are no hidden devices plugged in causing disruptions.  This is not a financial motivator this was just a way for me to provide free internet access to our patients and visitors without allowing them on the regular network.  The M0n0wall is attached to it's own DSL line on a non-routed network so as to create a flat VLAN that only attaches to the M0n0Wall box.  Over all a very basic layout with 20-50 users on any given day.  The most concurrent users I think I have ever noticed was about 25 (and that day no issues were reported).

I also welcome ANY ideas on how to work around or even how to replicate in order to try to work on it in more detail.

Maybe too much information or not enough depending on the person but if you need anymore just yell as I do not want to remove this setup as it has too much goodness associated with it.

When I use Windows 7 64 bit, open the IE cannot display the captive portal. But when I use Windows 7 32 bit, the captive portal appear every time I launch the IE. Any fix for this so that those Windows 7 64 bit users don't face this problem?

add this in the allowed networks (to and from):
131.107.255.255/32  dns.msftncsi.com   
64.4.18.90/32  www.msftncsi.com   
Vista and 7 now can calling home and redirection will work

[ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766017(WS.10).aspx ]

Up till now I've confirm that most laptops I've encountered Windows 7 64 bit is having this problem cannot view the captive portal.

I was wondering if there was any new suggestions on this. I too have been experiencing this issue. The solution of using Firefox isn't the greatest solution since this issue exists with Firefox 4 as well. I downgraded to IE 8 and have had no issues since with IE.

Frank's very good tip seems to be working for me.

A little more detail.  The IP's go on the captive portal tab labeled Services: Captive portal Allowed IP Addresses.  I am not sure that the address of the DNS server is needed here.  According to the docs, you only need the "to" rule(s).  I'll test If I have time tonight.

Also, at Services: DNS Forwarder add this line to section, second from the bottom, labeled "You may enter records that override the results from the forwarders below.":

dns     msftncsi.com     131.107.255.255

Microsoft's page on NCSI referencing Windows 7 is here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee126135%28WS.10%29.aspx

the page says, in part:

"A request for http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt [should produce] A page called ncsi.txt, which contains the following line of text with no terminating new line or other non-printing characters: Microsoft NCSI (Page headers disable caching.)

A request for DNS name resolution of dns.msftncsi.com [should produce] The resolution of the DNS name to: 131.107.255.255"

add this in the allowed networks (to and from):
131.107.255.255/32  dns.msftncsi.com   
64.4.18.90/32  www.msftncsi.com   
Vista and 7 now can calling home and redirection will work

[ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766017(WS.10).aspx ]

Hi I am having the same issue with win 7 64 bit systems logging into the CP I have set up. How do I enter these setting in to my monowall setup? Thanks I am very new to this and any help would be greatly appreciated!

What about the captive portal script?  Maybe there's an compatibility
issue there?

What about the captive portal script?  Maybe there's an compatibility
issue there?

No.

It's a Windows IE security policy problem.
It has nothing to do with m0n0.

Just inform the users to login to http://m0n0ip:port/ before they use the net and make the hard timeout a little bit longer.