question

[horaceB]

So I want to implement a captive portal on my network, so that users have to sign in before they gain access to the network. I want this to be applicable for my whole network, in other words, does firstspot act as a "sub-router" with it's own NAT , meaning firstspot users would be on their own subnet, or can it essentially act transparently, so that my central cisco router is still handling all the routing.

[alan]

FirstSpot acts as a NAT router with its own subnet. Note that you can turn off NAT within FirstSpot (available in Advanced Edition only) and then FirstSpot will still act as a router but without NAT. In that case, you need to setup return route in your next-hop router. Refer to chapter 3 (NAT section) of firstspot_guide.pdf for details.

Also, please check out http://patronsoft.com/firstspot/topologies.html for a typical network topology of FirstSpot.
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