Captive portal with email verification on WLC cisco 5500 series

[GunterFRITZ]

Hello everyone,

I am facing an issue with our Cisco WLC series 5500 controller, the previous network administrators did not leave any documentation behind, and I am unable to contact them for support.

I need to build a new Guest WIFI with a email verification.

Currently, we have two Wi-Fi networks set up on the controller : one with a password which is working fine and another for guests with SMS verification.

However, the SMS verification for the guest Wi-Fi network is not working, and I need to replace it with a guest WIFI that requires users to enter and verify their email address to access the Wi-Fi in a captive portal.

I have searched online for a way to set up a captive portal with email verification on the Cisco WLC, but I have not been able to find any helpful information about that specific setup.

I would like to add that there is a RADIUS server present on the network, which I have access to,  I think this will be usefull for the new Wi-Fi Guest.

If needed I can send configuration and screen since i have access on the WLC, i've already worked a bit on it.

Any help or guidance on this matter would be highly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Best Regards,
Gunter FRITZ

[Scott Fella]

You are looking for a not so easy solution.  With just using a controller, you really can't verify because it's just a form and they can put anything they want.  You will have to dig in and search external webauth with email or something to that nature to see how to setup and external web server that the controller redirects to and the portal will do any checking in the backend and either send an accept or reject to the controller.  I think you should start with, looking at what is possible either local on the controller or external webauth if you have and can manage a web server and determine what you can do.  There are 3rd party guest portal software that will cost some money but can do more things and provide you with more insights.

Here are some links you can look at:

https://beambox.com/townsquare/free-captive-portal-for-wifi
https://techtrickszone.com/5-best-open-source-captive-portal-for-hotspot-authentication/
https://mohammadthalif.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/list-of-open-source-captive-portal-software-and-network-access-control-nac/
https://purple.ai/products/guest-wifi/captive-portal/