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Endpoint Blocking Public WiFi Splash Pages

Burdett MacLean

Apologies if I'm posting to the wrong group - my question is about Endpoint Advanced, managed by cloud-based Central Admin.

We’ve been having an ongoing problem with Sophos on laptops for people who travel.  A lot of free public wifi networks, like you’d find at a hotel, restaurant, or airport, at first can only connect to a splash page where one must accept disclaimers, before the network will let the device connect to the rest of the internet.  Without accepting the terms on the splash page, the internet cannot be accessed.  And it seems that with many of these wireless network splash pages, Sophos completely blocks the disclaimers/terms/conditions page, thus preventing any and all internet access. 

I’m looking for an easy way to loosen up the Sophos policy that is restricting access these splash pages, without punching too much of a hole in the general network security that Sophos provides.  Thanks!



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  • 0

    Hi Burdett MacLean,

    Can you share the Sophos Block message details? Maybe a screenshot would help.

    Regards,

    Gowtham Mani
    Community Support Engineer | Sophos Technical Support
    Knowledge Base  |  @SophosSupport | Sign up for SMS Alerts
    If a post solves your question use the 'This helped me' link.

  • 0 in reply to Gowtham Mani

    One of our user had the same issue. Had to disabled the Sophos endpoint to enable the hotel Internet.

    I could not upload the screen shot because it is over the size limitation.

  • 0 in reply to Aditya Patel

    We are using Endpoint Advanced on MacOS 10.14.1. Always using the latest update, now is on 9.8.1.

  • 0 in reply to Philip Zhou

    Hi Philip , 

     

    Workaround.  

    *Option 1*. Ask the client to use an https website e.g. https://Google.com on another Browser besides Safari and there should be a security Error which is normal as the client machine does not have that certificate .Make sure the Safari page is closed before attempting on another browser as the Server/Router will expect the same connection and by doing so with another browser a new connection request is sent.
    *Option 2*. If the URL hostspot URL is known , ask to try to connect using a Mobile device and check URL/IPaddress of the first page it pops up and add that to Web Protection Exclusions. Only the Domain/IP would suffice as that would only be considered for an exclusion to take Place.
    *Option 3*. If the path is Unknown ask the customer to run the command in terminal -> *sudo tcpdump -vv | grep href* and when the splash page fails to load close the tab and check the output on the terminal . It will give the redirect URL which should be added in Web Exception in this case 10.255.0.1 or domain only. <Attached Snapshot>
    *KIndly Note* , Any web exceptions will only work if the system is connected to the internet . If You have only safari , copy the link from the output in the terminal and run the command *open <URL>* and it will open in Safari. in this example use command-> *open 10.255.0.1:4501/index.cgi* to make it simpler run the command *sudo tcpdump -vv | grep href* first exit the dump using ctrl +c and type *open <paste the URL>* ENTER or use the same URL in the Safari Browser directly.
    *Option 4:* Open Terminal run the command > *open http://google.com* and captive portal will show on Safari .

    Regards,

    Aditya Patel
    Global Escalation Support Engineer | Sophos Technical Support
    Knowledge Base  |  @SophosSupport | Sign up for SMS Alerts
    If a post solves your question use the 'This helped me' link.

  • 0 in reply to Aditya Patel

    I tried all those options but all not work.

    So far the only way to make the connect through is disabling the Sopho Services, not only the Web Control, but especially the Real Time Scanning.

     

    It is not acceptable because we have to disable the Temper protection also.

  • 0 in reply to Aditya Patel

    Aditya,

    We have tried this as well. The url's open fine in Safari and Chrome. Additionally if this were a policy why wouldn't the same policy block the pages on macOS 10.12 or 10.13? Something in the Endpoint software is not playing nice with the application itself.

    I have turned tamper protection off and or entered the password then proceeded to turn off all of the switches for scanning and policies on the endpoint. Still nothing. I have to completely disable the launch agents and launch daemons so the endpoint isn't running when the system is restarted. 

    I do have an open ticket for this but nothing has transpired since I put it in ~2-3 weeks ago.

  • 0 in reply to Steven Hammond

    Hi Steven ,

     

    This issue is related to the 10.14 , this issue is not affected on 10.12 or 10.13. We have cases which is open and still under investigation.  We will let you know if we have an ETA.

    Regards,

    Aditya Patel
    Global Escalation Support Engineer | Sophos Technical Support
    Knowledge Base  |  @SophosSupport | Sign up for SMS Alerts
    If a post solves your question use the 'This helped me' link.

  • 0 in reply to Aditya Patel

    We are also being affected by this. Unbeknownst to us, we were troubleshooting this with Aruba for the last month+ only to realize it's Sophos that is affecting this. This is a huge problem for all of our users, primarily our entire sales and customer engagement teams who frequently travel. Any of the workarounds are not acceptable (nor do they work) as I cannot field 10, 20, 30 calls a day related to wifi splash portals not working.

    Is there an ETA on this fix?

  • +1 in reply to Aditya Patel

    Finally I figured out the walk around and successfully tested it on different Mac and public wifi:

     

    When the error message come up, you need close that window and open a new browser.

    Type in this link: http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html

    The splash page will show up and you can get the Mac connected with wifi.

    You can ask your users keep this link as a bookmark. But please remind them they have to close the windows which show the error message. Otherwise it doesn't work.

     

    Hope Sophos can work with Apple to figure out a permanent fix soon.

     

  • 0 in reply to Aditya Patel

    I have several clients with this issue. Do we have an actual fix or follow up? 

  • 0 in reply to Andrew Herrera

    Hello Andrew,

    At the moment we are working on the fix as this issue's priority is high. We do not have an ETR at the moment for such resolution.

    Regards,

    Aditya Patel
    Global Escalation Support Engineer | Sophos Technical Support
    Knowledge Base  |  @SophosSupport | Sign up for SMS Alerts
    If a post solves your question use the 'This helped me' link.

  • 0 in reply to Aditya Patel

    All our employees depend on being on public networks across the city. This is affecting our business. Can you please tell us when you have the solution? Thanks! 

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