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Scenario is this: My office wifi AP uses a simple "press to agree button" captive portal. That works well for humans, but in this case my wifi client is an instrument that does not have any scripting capability. It can only connect to a non-captive AP.

I'd like to use the Pi3B+ to solve this problem by inserting itself in the middle. It would connect to our captive portal using one wlan, logon (selenium?), then pass through the connection to the other wlan as a basic AP.

I used Ingo's excellent answer to "access-point-as-wifi-router-repeater-optional-with-bridge" to build both a wifi-wifi bridge, and a wifi-wifi repeater. They work great, but the Pi that runs those images does not seem to have an internet connection available to itself so I can't use it to launch a browser and run a script. I have a Pi 3B+, PiZeroW, and a handful of Edimax and similar USB wifi transceivers.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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  • "to build both a wifi-wifi bridge, and a wifi-wifi repeater" - just to be clear: with Access point as WiFi router/repeater, optional with bridge there is no wifi-wifi bridge, there is a wired-wifi bridge. A RasPi cannot bridge a wifi client connection due to hardware limits. Your RasPi is permanent connected with a wifi uplink client connection (wlan0) to the captive portal. With this it should be able to get into the internet through the hotspot providing the captive portal. Can you confirm this? What's the problem with internet access?
    – Ingo
    Commented Nov 11, 2020 at 10:12
  • Hi Ingo, thanks for your reply. Yes,as both repeater and wired-wifi bridge I can access the internet via the AP wifi. I'm using a kbd/monitor as console but ultimately it will be headless. The console indicates "no wireless interfaces found" while it is repeating or bridging. This is probably as expected, but I am new to the Pi. So I am not sure how to initiate an uplink browser instance. My plan (perhaps a poor one :-) was to have a py script in /etc/rc.local which launches firefox, does the autologon with selenium, and presents the connection over the AP. I can't open the browser though.
    – Carmen
    Commented Nov 11, 2020 at 17:25
  • "I can access the internet..." - and "The console indicates 'no wireless interfaces found'". That contradicts itself. There must be wireless interfaces. How does the console "indicates" it? Is there a message coming just up when you start the console? What version of the Raspberry Pi OS do you use? The Light version or with a GUI?
    – Ingo
    Commented Nov 11, 2020 at 17:46
  • Hi Ingo, it is RaspOs Desktop 3.4, Aug 2020. Per your instructions, the wifi firmware was downgraded, etc. I can access the internet through the Rpi using my IPhone connected to the Rpi’s AP while the Rpi is connected to my wifi router as a client. Also, with the bridging image, a laptop connected to the Rpi’s Ethernet works. But on the upper right corner of the HDMI monitor screen, two red X’s appear on the uplink/downlink icon. Mousing over the icon displays “No wireless interfaces found”. Also, opening a browser results in a “no internet” msg on the browser. However the Wi-Fi must be OK.
    – Carmen
    Commented Nov 11, 2020 at 20:11
  • You are connected to the internet and you are connected to your captive portal. What's the problem? The GUI only supports the default network environment with dhcpcd. With systemd-networkd You're stuck on the command line.
    – Ingo
    Commented Nov 13, 2020 at 18:56

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