PfSense as Wi-Fi Hotspot Controller

A Province-wide WiFi  is being cooked as I’m writing this and I am in need of a vendor-independent controller for all the access points we are going to install. There will be a mix of vendors such as UBNT and OpenMesh for this project, and while each of them offers a “free” controller, I still need to have a single interface for all of them. Because PfSense will be our main Firewall/Router, I have decided to look into it and see if it can do what I want.
I will be posting my progress here, also to serve as a documentation of what I have done so far.

Requirements:

1. Utilize PfSense Captive portal(CP) feature – using vouchers. Done!
2. DHCP range
   • All backhaul devices have static mappings, including WiFi APs. Done!
   • WiFi clients different dhcp pool. Done!
3. Function to see all connected clients. Done! See Image 1.
   • See who and how many viewed the CP page.
   • See who among who viewed the CP have actually bought voucher and are authorized.
   • See page hits of the CP page.
   • Summary of the above.
4. Function to see all  Access Points. Done! See Image 2.
   • Add an access point function.
   • View Device name.
   • View SSID.
   • View Status.
   • View number of clients connected.
   • View Uptime.

 

Image 1

Image 2

Access Points requirement is SSH access. Using PHP ssh functions, I can issue CLI commands to get necessary info about the APs.

Next features:

1. Ability to issue more commands for controlling each AP.
2. Group WiFi clients based on which AP they are connected and display localized portal page.