Guest WiFi & Hotspot Vouchers

The guest wifi module turns a MikroTik hotspot into a paid (or free) WiFi service for people who are not your subscribers: campground guests, marina visitors, hotel rooms, a cafe. Guests land on a splash page in your colours, type a code, claim free access, sign in with their phone, or pay by card, and are online within seconds. Everything is RADIUS-native, so the router does the enforcing and ISPBox does the bookkeeping.

How it fits together

• Plans describe what a guest gets: validity, speed, data quota, online-time cap, how many devices, price (or free with a reuse policy).
• Vouchers are the codes. A code is a RADIUS username and password at the same time; once a device logs in with it, the device's MAC becomes a second identity so it reconnects without the page.
• Splash pages are what guests see. You can have several (a marina look, a campground look) and assign one per site.
• Sites are your Locations. Each has a page, the plans on offer, the routers serving guests and its own link with a login.html for the router.
• Guests are the people: a phone number and/or email, their devices, their codes and purchases. They are never Clients and never count towards your subscriber bill.

Step 1: create a plan

Open Guest WiFi > Plans and click New plan. Start with a free one to test the flow: "Free 30 minutes", speed 5/1 Mbps, tick Free plan, reuse "once a day". Then add the paid ones - "Day Pass, 24 hours, 10/2 Mbps, 5 GB, 2 devices, 5.00". A plan pinned to no site is offered everywhere; tick sites under Offered at to restrict it.

Limits are enforced live: the router cuts the session when the quota or the online time runs out, and the panel marks the code as used up within five minutes and kicks any leftover session.

Step 2: design the splash page

Guest WiFi > Pages. Create a page, then work through the tabs: Theme (colours, corners, your logo, a background photo), Welcome (an optional first screen), Ways in (code, free access, buy, phone sign-in, email sign-in, the details you collect, terms of use), Status page (what the guest sees once online) and Messages (payment confirmations, usage warnings). Texts have a version per language. The preview on the right is the real page.

Phone and email sign-in need your SMS (Settings > SMS) or mail setup; buying needs at least one payment gateway (Settings > Payments). The page only shows the ways in that can actually work.

Step 3: set up the site and the router

Guest WiFi > Sites. Open your location, pick the page, check the plans, and tick Guests on the router that runs the hotspot (add the router first under Settings > Routers, RADIUS mode, with this location). The Router setup panel appears with everything the MikroTik needs:

1. RADIUS: the RADIUS client pointing at ISPBox (over your WireGuard tunnel or the public RADIUS address) with the router's secret, plus CoA so the panel can cut sessions.
2. Profile: a hotspot profile with login-by=mac,http-chap,http-pap,mac-cookie, MAC as username and password, RADIUS authentication and accounting with 5-minute interim updates. Replace bridge-guest with your guest bridge.
3. Server: applies the profile to your hotspot server and sets sane timeouts.
4. Walled garden: the hosts a guest may reach before logging in - your ISPBox host and the payment providers you enabled. Re-apply it when you enable a new gateway.
5. Login HTML: a /tool fetch that downloads this site's login.html into the router's hotspot folder. That file sends guests to your splash page with their MAC and the router's login link.

The checklist under the commands turns green as things start working: RADIUS client registered, router reachable, requests arriving, accounting arriving, CoA enabled. The troubleshooting list covers the usual suspects (no masquerade rule, fasttrack on, missing walled-garden host, RouterOS 7 message authenticator).

Step 4: test as a guest

Join the WiFi with a phone. You should see your splash page. Claim the free plan, then check Guest WiFi > Sessions: the phone is there with its MAC and traffic. Disconnect it from the panel and watch it drop. Then buy a plan with a test card and confirm the code appears with a Connect now button.

Selling codes

• Printed sheets: Guest WiFi > Vouchers > Generate. Up to 1000 codes per batch, with a label and either a clock that starts at first login or a fixed valid-until date. The print view skips codes that are already used.
• One code per guest: paste phone numbers or emails into the generate modal and each gets a code by SMS or email, filed under that guest.
• From a guest's card: open the guest, pick a plan, Create code - optionally sent straight away.
• Resellers: agents sell a code on the spot from their portal (wallet-paid, sent by SMS or WhatsApp) and print their own batches.
• Online: guests buy on the splash page or in their portal (/wifi/me) through Stripe, PayPal, Square or Authorize.net. Orders show under Guest WiFi > Orders with a receipt link; a stuck one can be re-checked with the gateway.

Guests and their portal

Guest WiFi > Guests lists everyone who identified themselves. Open one to see devices, codes, purchases and sessions, to block them (their codes stop working and their devices are kicked) or to jot a note. Guests reach their own portal at /wifi/me: they sign in with a one-time code (or automatically from a device that is online on their voucher), see what is left on each code, connect a new device, add a TV by MAC, and buy more.

Reports and retention

Reports > Guest WiFi shows revenue and codes by plan and by site for a period, with CSV exports of sessions, vouchers, guests and payments. Under Guest WiFi > Settings you set how codes look (length, characters, prefix), the default page, the data unit, the printed card theme, and how long inactive guests are kept before their personal data is removed.

Permissions

hotspot.view opens the module read-only, hotspot.manage allows changes, and hotspot.guests is needed to see guest identities (phone, email) and sessions.