For administrators who manage ChromeOS devices for a business or school.
As an admin, you can use your Google Admin console to configure captive portal detection on managed Wi-Fi networks.
Public Wi-Fi networks, such as airports and hotels, often use captive portals to make sure that users agree to their terms of service or provide payment before they can use their network to access the internet. On the captive portal sign-in page, users are prompted to sign in—maybe by entering their email address or agreeing to terms.
Since managed networks are often configured with a firewall or proxy that can interact poorly with automatic captive portal detection—network mislabeled as offline, firewall alerts, and so on—captive portal detection for managed networks is turned off by default. If your organization wants to configure a network that requires captive portal sign-in, such as a guest network or a preferred hotel chain, you’ll need to turn on captive portal detection for that network.
Captive portal experience for users
When users connect their ChromeOS device to a Wi-Fi network whose internet connection is behind a captive portal, their user experience differs, depending on whether captive portal detection is turned on or off.
- Captive portal detection is turned on—When the device connects to the Wi-Fi network, the user sees a notification letting them know that they need to sign in to the network. The sign-in page automatically opens in a browser window. After the user signs in, they are connected to the internet.
- Captive portal detection is turned off—This is the default for managed networks. If captive portal detection is turned off for a network that requires captive portal sign-in, upon connection to the Wi-Fi network the user might not realize that they need to sign in to a captive portal before they can access the internet. The user needs to manually open a browser window and browse to the captive portal sign-in page. After the user signs in, they are connected to the internet.
Turn on captive portal detection
Any updates you make to existing Wi-Fi profiles using the Admin console are automatically pushed to devices.
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Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
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(Optional) To apply the setting to a department or team, at the side, select an organizational unit. Show me how
- Find and click the Wi-Fi network you want to change.
- Scroll to Captive Portal Settings.
- Choose an option:
- Captive Portal Detection Off—This is the default.
- Captive Portal Detection On—Both HTTPS and HTTP URLs are probed. If needed, check the HTTP web probes only box.
- Click Save.
For information about setting up new Wi-Fi networks, go Set up networks for managed devices (Wi-Fi, Ethernet, VPN, cellular).
Troubleshooting
Resolve captive portal issue on ChromeOS
If users are seeing the error Device cannot connect to any wireless network or Network not available, you might need to allow access to additional hosts through your firewall. Hosts should be accessible via HTTP port 80 for ChromeOS to detect the device as connected to the internet.
In addition to allowing these hosts through your firewall, if you perform TLS or SSL inspection on your network, you’ll need to also follow the instructions on how to Set up a hostname allowlist.