How to Block a Customer (Hotspot) and Tell him to Pay the Bill

Sometimes you may need to cut off a customer and tell him to pay his bill. It's best done by redirecting his http requests to a page with information telling to pay in order to get reconnected. You can do it with a simple destination NAT rule that captures all http requests from a specific address and sends them to a server with webpage telling to pay the bill. However, it's quite easy to make this using the HotSpot feature of RouterOS. Please note that this don't work with PPPoE connections.

To make this setup, you should have Hotspot package enabled on the RouterOS. This example will cover how to block customer's computer. When he tries to open a webpage he would be redirected to the hotspot page which will contain info that he hasn't paid the bill for the Internet access. Your router should have already been configured and working (customer should have access to the Internet), you should have the DNS server specified in the router.

First you should edit the Hotspot login.html page with the text that contains information that will be shown to the customers who haven't paid their bills. It could be something like this: "Service not available, please pay the bill and contact us by phone to get reconnected". This page can be found within the hotspot folder of RouterOS.

Next, add an ip-binding rule that will allow all customers to bypass the hotspot page. It is done using such a command:

/ip hotspot ip-binding add type=bypassed address=0.0.0.0/0 \
comment="bypass the hotspot for all the paying customers"

After that add the Hotspot server on the interface where your clients are connected. It can be done using such command:

/ip hotspot add interface=local disabled=no

Now you can add ip-binding rules for the customers that haven't paid their bill. You can match them by IP address or MAC address. Here is an example using MAC address:

/ip hotspot ip-binding add mac-address=00:0C:42:00:00:90 type=regular comment "Non paying client 1"

Now we have such configuration:

[admin@MikroTik] ip hotspot ip-binding> print
Flags: X - disabled, P - bypassed, B - blocked
# MAC-ADDRESS ADDRESS TO-ADDRESS SERVER
0 P ;;; bypass the hotspot for all the paying customers
0.0.0.0/0
1 ;;; Non paying client 1
00:0C:42:00:00:90

There is one more step to make it work, you should change the order of these rules, the first rule should be above the bypass rule so it could be processed. You can move it using move command:

[admin@MikroTik] ip hotspot ip-binding> move 1 0

Now the ip-binding configuration should look like this:

[admin@MikroTik] ip hotspot ip-binding> print
Flags: X - disabled, P - bypassed, B - blocked
# MAC-ADDRESS ADDRESS TO-ADDRESS SERVER
0 ;;; Non paying client 1
00:0C:42:00:00:90
1 P ;;; bypass the hotspot for all the paying customers
0.0.0.0/0

If the customers can pay their bill using internet you can modify the login.html by adding some links to clients bank web-page where they can pay their bill. After you add these links in the login page you should also add them in the hotspot configuration so the blocked customer could access that page. This can be done in the 'ip hotspot walled-garden ip' menu. Here is an example:

/ip hotspot walled-garden ip add dst-host=www.paypal.com