Login at Kodi Home

**popcornmix** · 2016-01-05, 13:06

(2016-01-05, 12:16)DarrenHill Wrote: The problem would be that the wifi tends to be captive portal (web page needing supplied username and password to be entered) which would limit options.

Someone here has suggesting using http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add-on:Web_Viewer for this.

**DarrenHill** · 2016-01-05, 13:19

Sounds like something to pre-install and then test next week in Germany.

Thanks, will update on how it goes.

**DarrenHill** · (This post was last modified: 2016-01-11, 21:37 by DarrenHill.)

And to update - now here at the German hotel and the add-on is working perfectly. Got me logged in fine and able to stream YouTube as a test. That plus getting my homebrew lirc remote running is very pleasing.

Now I just need to get OpenVPN to connect to my home server and all will be perfect. Alas that is giving hassle at the moment and may need a server certificate rebuild perhaps.

@popcornmix - many thanks again for the superb support (as ever).

**DarrenHill** · 2016-01-31, 18:30

Just thought people might be interested in the esp8266 phat, new out from Pimoroni. It's a WiFi hat with a built in little breadboard that looks like it could take an IR detector by direct soldering on to give IR remote capability too, all whilst leaving the micro USB port free for a drive.

I have one on order to try it out, but it looks promising to make a zero into a complete stand alone player.

**popcornmix** · 2016-01-31, 18:43

That's cute. Note only 1Mb/s over wifi so not so good for streaming (maybe some low bitrate iPlayer/YouTube streams).
But if videos are on USB disk and wifi is just for updates, admin access or phone remote it might work well.

**DarrenHill** · 2016-01-31, 19:03

Exactly the scenario I'm thinking for it.

I saw the speed, will test it out and see how it goes. Well be nice to have this plus my new PiDrive cable and to be able to ditch the powered hub and lighten my travelling kit and cable spaghetti.

**Sam.Nazarko** · 2016-02-02, 19:44

ConnMan, which both OSMC and OE use has baked in functionality for 'captive portal' login in wispr.c. It pings a status page and checks for HTTP-X-ConnMan-Status from http://ipv4.connman.net/online/status.html or http://ipv6.connman.net/online/status.html, to make sure it's getting back a real connection to the Internet, rather than a redirect page.

There should be a way to support login to these portals, as the code seems to already be there. I need to find a way to try and set up one of these portals at home so I can do some testing.

**DanTheMan827** · 2016-02-02, 22:50

(2016-02-02, 19:44)Sam.Nazarko Wrote: ConnMan, which both OSMC and OE use has baked in functionality for 'captive portal' login in wispr.c. It pings a status page and checks for HTTP-X-ConnMan-Status from http://ipv4.connman.net/online/status.html or http://ipv6.connman.net/online/status.html, to make sure it's getting back a real connection to the Internet, rather than a redirect page.

There should be a way to support login to these portals, as the code seems to already be there. I need to find a way to try and set up one of these portals at home so I can do some testing.

TomatoUSB and DD-WRT both support captive portals

TomatoUSB is a little easier to configure though

**Sam.Nazarko** · 2016-02-03, 16:46

Thanks. I have purchased a small router which has DD WRT support so I will try that

**DarrenHill** · 2016-02-04, 10:55

(2016-01-31, 18:43)popcornmix Wrote: That's cute. Note only 1Mb/s over wifi so not so good for streaming (maybe some low bitrate iPlayer/YouTube streams).
But if videos are on USB disk and wifi is just for updates, admin access or phone remote it might work well.

OK, just got it and wired it all up, and unfortunately OE 6.0.1 doesn't see it. In the OE settings add-on there's no options for wifi (or Ethernet, but that's understandable) in the network tab.

Is there going to be something I need to add to the config.txt file to enable it, or is it a lack of serial driver baked into OE that is going to be blocking me? I see from the Pimoroni site that they're working on new firmware for the pHat which I guess may also help perhaps.

Will give it a test run later with a Raspbian card too just to see if that can drive it or whether there's a wider issue somewhere here.

nickr · 2016-02-04, 11:17

dmesg and lsusb may give some clues.

**DarrenHill** · 2016-02-04, 15:08

It's not usb connected - it's on the GPIO pins (it's a pHat).

But I was going to look into it more later (just soldered the pHat up quickly before work, no time for major testing), so I thought I'd throw it out for input in case it needed an overlay or anything added to get it visible to OE.

Also getting a console to try the commands could be an interesting challenge, given a non-functional wifi hardware... Wink

I see they've also now changed their web page for the pHat, so I'm not holding much hope for it working I think, and maybe will just try and send it back.

**popcornmix** · 2016-02-04, 15:23

(2016-02-04, 15:08)DarrenHill Wrote: I see they've also now changed their web page for the pHat, so I'm not holding much hope for it working I think, and maybe will just try and send it back.

Yes, reading the instructions suggests it won't work out of the box.
I'm not even convinced that getting an IP address is enough to use the network. I think that just means the pHat has an IP address/network connection,
but I suspect you'll still need some commands to allow the Pi to tunnel through that interface.

They say use a full size Pi for setting up (so you can ssh in and do the config stuff) and transfer it afterwards.
I suspect it would be possible to make it work in OE (using autostart.sh). But it wouldn't look like a wifi device and so couldn't be configured from GUI.

I think currently this is really only for tinkerers - not for a plug in and play device.

**DarrenHill** · 2016-02-04, 16:16

I've just heard back from Pimoroni, and they've given me a full refund plus said I can keep the board for future tinkering.

So once again their superb services is in evidence, and I can rebuild my Zero back with its jumper cabled IR detector on the GPIO and carry on. It's a shame as I'd have liked to do away with the hub to allow wifi and hard drive connection, but maybe in the future someone will produce a board which can do that.