Successfully set up and left running my first Mikrotik Hotspots a couple of days ago, but the owner has just telephoned me with a minor but puzzling problem. I can’t access his system to check the settings and won’t be able to get back to his place for a couple of days.
I think I know what might be causing the problem but would appreciate any other input.
It concerns a back-packer’s hostel. It has a ‘public’ PC and a wireless hotspot. I created a hotspot on the Public PC’s ethernet interface and one on the wireless ap interface. User-manager is on the same router. Each hotspot has its own customer, user prefix and user profile as the PC is limited by time vouchers but the wireless hotspot is limited by data and runs faster.
Now the owner tells me that the slightly cheaper vouchers issued for the PC enable log-ons via the wireless interface.
My guess is that the wireless user’s profile refers to an address pool but the PC, having a static IP, doesn’t. Nor does the individual PC user’s profile in U-M give an address as it seemed unnecessary. But I have to wonder if in the absence of any reference to an IP address either in a valid PC user’s profile or his particular U-M entry when attempting to log onto the wireless hotspot, the hotspot is issuing him one from its pool anyway. DHCP isn’t running on the router.
As the hotspots are on different networks I can’t see any other way it could be happening but I’m no expert.
If I’m right I suppose the solution is to add an address to the PC Hotspot user’s profile even if it’s overridden by the static one but if there’s a way to limit log-ons to a specific hotspot I can’t find it mentioned in the (typically opaque for Mikrotik) documentation. If so I could probably talk the owner through doing it over the 'phone, which would effect a quicker cure and save me a trip out there, but if anyone can think of any other cause or a better solution I’d love to hear it.
Thanks.