Administrator Guide

Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting 313
Captive Portal
This section describes how to configure the Captive Portal feature.
The topics covered in this section include:
• Captive Portal Overview
• Default Captive Portal Behavior and Settings
• Configuring Captive Portal (Web)
• Configuring Captive Portal (CLI)
• IEEE 802.1X Configuration Examples
Captive Portal Overview
A Captive Portal (CP) helps manage or restrict network access. CPs are often
used in locations that provide wired Internet access to customers, such as
business centers and hotels. For example, a hotel might provide an Ethernet
port in each room so that guests can connect to the Internet during their stay.
The hotel might charge for Internet use, or the hotel might allow guests to
connect only after they indicate that they have read and agree to the
acceptable use policy.
What Does Captive Portal Do?
The CP feature allows you to require a user to enter login information on a
custom web page before gaining access to the network. When the user
connects to the port and opens a browser, the user is presented with a
welcome screen. To gain network access, the user must enter a username (for
guest access) or a username and password (for authenticated access) and
accept the terms of use. The network administrator can also configure the CP
feature to redirect the user to another web page after successful
authentication, for example a company home page.
CP is supported in IPv4 networks only.