Mikrotik – Help Center

Notice

Starting February, 15th 2020, it won't be possible to add new Mikrotik devices in Cloud4Wi accounts.
The existing devices already configured in your accounts will continue to work properly.

For any concerns or special requests, please contact our team: Contact us!

Purpose

The purpose is to help a technician, already skilled in the use of a Mikrotik device, to configure this product for Cloud4Wi. This document applies to a Mikrotik device that is already configured to work as a router.

Please note that the images contained in this article may contain outdated configuration data. Therefore, please check the data contained in the article "Parameters for the Solution" at the bottom of the page, as they are certainly up to date.

Prerequisites

This article applies to the following models:

RB750 series
RB2011iL-IN
RB2011iL series
RB2011UiAS series
RB1100AH series
CCR1016 series
CCR1036 series
RB1000 series
RB1100 series
RB951

To use a Mikrotik device as an access point, it is necessary for the router:

to be connected to the Internet
to be reachable on the network
to be configured to correctly assign IP addresses to clients

It is also necessary to get the Winbox client (it is recommended to get the last version of the tool at http://www.mikrotik.com/download).

Accessing the device

The access to the device is performed by using WinBox.

Configuring the RADIUS server

The Radius menu contains all data necessary to reach an external RADIUS server. Please set Timeout to 2000 ms.

With our solution, it is also possible to configure a secondary RADIUS server: just add a new RADIUS server.

Setting up the hotspot profile

In the IP > Hotspot menu, by clicking the Hotspot Setup button, you can set all details for your Hotspot. The configuration is made through a wizard which guides you through all the steps.
In the first step, you must set the interface where you intend to run the access point.

In the second and third steps, you must choose the interval of IP addresses that will be assigned to clients connecting to the access point.

In the fourth step, it is possible to upload an SSL certificate, if necessary.

In the fifth step, you may choose the IP address of SMTP server. Please leave the default value, since we will not use any SMTP server.

In the sixth step, you must choose DNS Servers used by the access point. The recommended values are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

In the seventh step, you must enter a DNS name. This parameter is not significant, but it's important that the entered value is not the name of a pingable host (for example "johndoe.sys").

In the eighth and last step please leave blank these settings, since they are not necessary for the proper functioning of the access point.

As you can see, the hotspot has now been created.

You are able to change it later, for example by entering a new name (in this case "Mk_C4w"). This name must be unique between all the devices within the network.

The same name must be set as Identity in the System > Identity menu. This name is the Identifier required in the Cloud4Wi Dashboard, and as we said before, it must be unique in your network. Otherwise, the RADIUS requests coming from the device will be not correctly processed.

Then a Hotspot server profile is automatically created. In General settings we must configure the following:

Name: the name of the Service Profile
Hotspot Address: the address previously configured during the wizard
DNS Name: the name specified previously during the creation of the Service Profile
HTML Directory: see next paragraph

In the Login tab, we must configure HTTP CHAP and HTTP PAP as authentication encryption.

We must specify that the authentication must be performed against a RADIUS server and we also must enable the accounting phase.

Walled garden

Then we must open the Walled Garden tab and specify the sites that end-users are able to visit without any need to perform an authentication.

IMPORTANT:
It is mandatory to add the following entry into this list, necessary to redirect end-users to the Splash Page.

*.cloud4wi.com

In order to configure the walled garden for other purposes, please check the following articles:

Uploading the file to redirect end-users towards the Splash Page

As for the last step of the configuration, it is necessary to upload files on the device in order to correctly redirect end-users towards the Splash Page. At the end of this article there is a ZIP file to download.

Important: The extracted folder from the ZIP should not be uploaded to the hotspot folder as is, but only the contents of the extracted folder

We have to distinguish between two cases:

Case # 1: Your device has not the "flash" folder pre-installed
Case # 2: Your device has the "flash" folder pre-installed (it happens for some newer devices)

In order to understand what is your case, please access the Files menu on the left sidebar and then check if you have the "flash" folder.

Case # 1: Your device has not the "flash" folder pre-installed

If this is the case, please upload the file that is attached to this page, to the "hotspot" folder that we specified before as HTML Directory, during the configuration of the Server Profile.

Important: The extracted folder from the ZIP should not be uploaded to the hotspot folder as it is, but only the contents of the extracted folder.

In the Files menu on the left sidebar, you can see the files currently stored into the device.

Case # 2: Your device has the "flash" folder pre-installed

For some Mikrotik devices, you can find a pre-installed folder called "flash" in the Files section. If this is your case, please follow the additional procedure (valid for v6.32.3)

Get an FTP client and use it to get access to your Mikrotik (port 21). We got the pictures from FileZilla.
Create a folder called "hotspot" under the "/flash" path
Upload the "hotspot" folder attached to this page, to the /flash/hotspot folder just created. Important: The extracted folder from the ZIP should not be uploaded as it is, but only the contents of the extracted folder.
Go back to the Hotspot Server Profile previously defined, in the General section, and change HTML directory field to "flash/hotspot".

Allowing free access to the CDN

Explained in the article Enabling the CDN, you must add some IP addresses to the walled garden in order to support the access to the CDN.
The domains to add for this purpose are:

c4wstatic.cloud4wi.com
c4wstaticjs.cloud4wi.com

Entering the device details into the Cloud4Wi Dashboard

To integrate the access point with the Solution, you must enter its details into the Cloud4Wi Dashboard.

For further information on how to do that, please see How to add an access point. Secondly, in the Cloud4Wi Dashboard, a field called Identifier will be required by the web interface. For Mikrotik products, as said before, corresponds to the Identity value that has been set into the System > Identity menu.

Please note that this value must be unique for all the devices entered in the Cloud4Wi Dashboard. Otherwise, the access point will not be correctly integrated with the Solution.

Parameters for the Solution

The parameters indicated above for the Mode Settings section are mandatory for the proper functioning. The necessary parameters to integrate the device with the Solution are the following:

Radius Server: 54.247.117.188 (or 79.125.111.180, as secondary RADIUS server)
Secret: (it will be communicated by Cloud4Wi)
Authentication Port: 1812
Accounting Port: 1813

Please remember that it is mandatory to set the Splash Page URL (splashportal.cloud4wi.com) in the walled garden, as explained in the previous paragraph Setting up the hotspot profile.

If these parameters change in the future, we will promptly inform you about new values.

cloud4wi.zip
20 KB Download