Jasiyo
    Hotspot5 min read

    Captive Portal Overview

    Jasiyo's hotspot captive portal lets walk-in customers pay via M-Pesa and get instant Wi-Fi access — fully automated, zero manual intervention.

    What is the captive portal?

    The captive portal is the payment page that customers see when they connect to your Wi-Fi hotspot. Before they can access the internet, they are redirected to this page to select a plan and pay via M-Pesa.

    Jasiyo's captive portal is a hosted, dark-themed web page served directly from Jasiyo's servers. Your MikroTik hotspot redirects unauthenticated users to this page automatically.

    No payment is required from you to run the portal — it's included in your Jasiyo subscription. No separate server or hosting needed.

    Customer payment flow

    1

    Customer connects to Wi-Fi

    The customer connects to your hotspot SSID. Their device gets an IP address from your MikroTik hotspot server.

    2

    Redirected to captive portal

    When they open any website (or their device's captive portal detection fires), MikroTik redirects them to the Jasiyo portal URL.

    3

    Select a plan

    The portal displays your available hotspot plans with prices and durations. The customer picks the one they want.

    4

    Enter phone number & pay

    They enter their Safaricom phone number and click Pay Now. An M-Pesa STK Push is sent to their phone.

    5

    Approve on phone

    The customer enters their M-Pesa PIN and approves the payment. The portal shows a countdown timer while waiting.

    6

    Access granted

    Jasiyo receives the M-Pesa confirmation, creates a hotspot user on MikroTik, and the customer's browser is redirected to the internet. The whole process takes under 30 seconds.

    Setting up the captive portal

    Go to Routers → [Your Router] → Hotspot Setup in your dashboard. The setup script will:

    • → Configure a MikroTik hotspot server on your selected interface
    • → Set the login redirect URL to Jasiyo's captive portal
    • → Add Jasiyo's domains to the walled garden (accessible before payment)
    • → Configure RADIUS or local user authentication
    Running the hotspot setup script will modify your MikroTik hotspot configuration. If you already have a hotspot server configured manually, review the changes before applying.

    Branding & customisation

    The portal can display your ISP's name and a custom welcome message. Go to Settings → General to update your business name — this will appear on the portal header.

    The portal uses Jasiyo's default dark theme with an animated, mobile-first layout. It works on all smartphones without needing an app download.

    Voucher redemption

    The captive portal also supports voucher redemption. Customers who have a voucher code can enter it on the portal to get instant access without going through the M-Pesa payment flow.

    See the Voucher management guide for how to generate and manage vouchers.

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