openELEC - connecting to hotels Wi-Fi
#1
hello,

Lately I heard about a lot of people having a hard time connecting to Wi-Fi in hotels with Kodi on the Raspberry Pi, openELEC is the operating system which is a minimum version of linux and certainly without a browser.

As you probably know, Wi-Fi networks in hotels are usually open but demand to open a browser and insert a username+password (or password only) given free by the hotel receipt. – A thing that you cannot do on openELEC.

My idea is to open a repo in Github and develop a *minimum version of a browser* to transplant in openELEC Kodi which allows the user to insert the details needed(given user+passkey from the hotel).
*minimum version of a browser* = I thought about a CLI browser(like Elinks) with the adding of a nice GUI that will be able to catch the fields of username(optional) + password and prompt the user to insert.

What do you think about my idea?

Can we go for it and start develop?
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#2
There are few complicated solutions I found on the web like:
Register with a usb wifi stick on the laptop and then move it to the raspberry pi(does not solve the problem on Rpi3 because wifi is built in) or make the hotel approve you by IP or install linux and then Kodi or having 2 operating systems….
---> There is no appropriate solution.

I also heard the opinion that the Wi-Fi in hotels isn't strong enough, it is not true – I connected the open Wi-Fi in several hotels with my laptop and was running Kodi streams perfectly. HDMI is not a problem either- many hotels already have it on their TVs and if not – there are adapters.

I Would like to hear your opinion.

Thanks.
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#3
Some people have been able to pre-install the Web Viewer add-on, which his a very basic text and link viewer for websites, to get past the hotel wifi log-in portal.
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#4
Just use the web viewer add-on from the official repo.

It works fine with Openelec/LibreElec and gives enough web access to use captive portals fine. I use it all the time with my travelling Pi zero running LibreElec in hotels.

It's more or less what you were proposing I think and is already there in the repo.
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#5
Also please do not duplicate post in multiple sections. Once it's enough.

Threads have been merged
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#6
OK thanks
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#7
Great Thank you
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#8
Couple of things, good to know we can actually take our WiFi Dongle from our Pi 2 and insert in our PC while traveling, or if our internet goes out and set it up for Xfinity WiFi that requires a login, as long as we have PC to do so

My question is if we can't do this because we don't have access to a PC, how exactly does the Web Viewer work. When I open it, it is set to Google.com, if I type the XFinity WiFi sign in page, I do not get anything to show up, I get a page error, is that for 2 reasons ?? I would have to enter my Xfinity WiFi into my Dongle, then once I do that, I then back out and go to the Web Viewer and would the Xfinity WiFi sign in page then show up to enter the text login info ?? or am I missing something.

Don
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#9
Bump, anyone have any suggestions to the above ??
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#10
The Google page is just a placeholder.

For most hotel WiFi when you try and access it the captive portal should intercept the request and redirect you to its login page.
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#11
(2017-06-19, 13:58)DarrenHill Wrote: The Google page is just a placeholder.

For most hotel WiFi when you try and access it the captive portal should intercept the request and redirect you to its login page.

Thanks, that explains it, I'll give it a go

I assume the same applies to my WiFi at home, if my internet goes out at home, I usually can still connect to Xfinity Wifi, which also once connected requires a login once, so that would also do the job for that ?Nod
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#12
I would expect so, but having never used it can't say for certain.

If it takes you to a login page initially whatever URL you enter them it's such a system.
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#13
chromium addon worked great on openelec, you can find it on official openelec repo.
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#14
Ah well. Those dependencies will be in the repo, but not in the zip file.

From what I can see:

script.module.mechanize

script.module.youtube.dl

It also needs XBMC.python, but I think that's shipped as standard
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#15
I'm just off on holiday with my Pi 3. I'm taking a plain Raspbian micro SD card, though I guess you could just run Kodi on Raspbian, rather than openElec (or similar) AND one with Kodi on OpenElec. I presume the hotel uses the wireless' MAC to 'register the device', so I'll be able to register via Raspbian, then reboot into Kodi. Fingers crossed.

I think I'll add the browser plugin, just in case.
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