Forgetting MACs on Guest Wi-Fi

[Alexander-David]

Hello!

Is there a way, besides time limit on guest wi-fi, to forget MACs of the devices that exit the wi-fi coverage of our guest network and then force them to re login when they come back? We are looking for that in a wi-fi project at a cofee shop.

Thanks!

Alex

[HodyCrouch]

I'm aware of three ways to force a client to visit the captive portal page after they sign-in or click-through successfully:

 - Time limit (as you know)

 - Manually click 'Revoke' on the client detail page in Meraki dashboard

 - Call the splashAuthorizationStatus API

I don't know of an automated solution to revoke the sign-in or click-through based on a client leaving an area of WiFi coverage.

I suppose you could use Meraki's Scanning API to monitor which devices are connected and call the splashAuthorizationStatus API when a device disappears for a set period of time.

You might also be able to use the /devices/[serial]/clients API with different values for timespan to try to figure out which devices were recently connected but are no longer in the area.

What's the reasoning behind forcing a client to re-login on each return visit and treating that differently from someone sitting in the store for a long period of time?

[PhilipDAth]

I would recommend you look at Splash Access:

https://www.splashaccess.com/

They provide a captive portal with this feature, and lots of other useful things for retail environments.

[Alexander-David]

Hi HodyCrouch,

Thanks for all the answers. I'll try to make it work with monitoring and calling the splashAuthorizationStatus API.

Regarding this: "You might also be able to use the /devices/[serial]/clients API with different values for timespan to try to figure out which devices were recently connected but are no longer in the area." I don't really understand how it works.

The reason behind forcing a client to re login is marketing. The owner of the cofee shop wants his customers to popularize his business if or when they come back. From my point of view it makes more sense to set a time limit of a few hours than everytime they get out of WiFi range.

[PhilipDAth]

In that case why not use the Facebook Wifi login system?

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Splash_Page/Facebook_Login

[HodyCrouch]

To use /devices/[serial]/clients, you first need the serial number of the device you want to check.  You can get the serial number from another API (network or inventory) or from the Meraki Dashboard UI.

When you make the clients API call, you must include a parameter 'timespan'.  This parameter tells the API how far back you want to look when listing clients (in seconds).  For your use case, you might call the API with a timespan of 1 hour (3600 seconds) and again with a timespan of 1 day (86400 seconds).  For any devices that appear in the 1-day query but not in the 1 hour query, you would revoke the splash authorization through the API call I already mentioned.

With the Scanning API, you would listen for data from Meraki, keep a list of devices and when you last saw them, and revoke authorization when a device disappears for a predefined period of time.