Hey there,
I’m looking for support on getting my freedombox set up so people can connect to it in the physical location where it’s located only and download files from an index.html page. I would love for it to function as a captive portal but I can’t find any information on how to set that up. I’ve been attempting to use chatgpt to help me set up the wireless network, but I’m going in circles and getting very frustrated.
I’ve looked here, Adapting FreedomBox for an Offline Community Hub in a Public Park, and while there’s references to freedombox being used this way, there’s not much in terms of step by step instructions on how to actually achieve it. I’m not a networking-literate person for the most part so I’d like some help on this, especially since it seems like the freedombox team suggests that this is something that people can set up.
To setup a regular Wi-Fi access point do the following:
Create a new network connection in System → Networks
Specify the “Connection Name”. This is just a label.
In Network Interface, choose the Wi-Fi device with which you want to create the access point. You will likely only one option as you will likely have a single Wi-Fi device.
In Wi-Fi section, enter SSID to be the access point name that others will discover when they scan for Wi-Fi networks.
Select Mode to be “Access Point”. This is what makes the difference between connecting to an existing Wi-Fi network and creating a Wi-Fi network.
In Passphrase, choose a password that users will have to type to connect to this access point. If don’t want set a password, then select the Authentication Mode to be “Open”.
In IPv4 section, select the Addressing Method to be “shared”.
Save and activate the connection.
Unfortunately, there is no option here in FreedomBox to setup a captive portal. You will need to do this on the command lane (treating FreedomBox as a regular machine). You can experiment with steps in this guide especially Part 1, steps 3 and 4. It would be nice if someone can experiment with this and write a FreedomBox guide.
Is there any way to set up the index.html page to be served over https? Right now it isn’t so the page gives that big scary “insecure page” warning that I don’t imagine most people will know how to bypass.