PfSense on Mobile Wifi (MIFI)

[jcpy]

Hi folks, Wonder how to set up pfSense on a mobile wifi hotspot, specifically for captive portal and radius user database.

Thanks and Cheers  :)

[stephenw10]

You mean actually run pfSense on the mifi device? No.
Run pfSense on another box and use it as a captive portal between users and the mifi device? Yes.

Steve

[jcpy]

Thanks stephenw10.

May I ask if there's any way to setup captive portal in mifi? and what's the box you talk about?

I actually need that in mifi, but would also explore other means.

Thanks a million.

[stephenw10]

pfSense only supports X86 hardware and all the 'mifi' units I have ever seen are some type of SoC, ARM or MIPS. To use pfSense as a captive portal you need an additional X86 box that would use the mifi as its WAN and provide wifi on its LAN. You can use almost anything you have to hand for that box but you probably want something portable like say an Alix box. http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Kits-C82.aspx

Alternatively it may be possible to run the captive portal directly on the mifi using an alternative firmware such as OpenWRT. It depends entirely what the actual hardware you have is and whether you have done this sort of thing before, it can seem a bit daunting the first time!  ;)

E.g.: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/zlmnet/mifif10n

If you have a device that can run OpenWRT then there are several captive portal solutions available for it.

Steve