Device Management

Zones

Zones group access points together and link them to a captive portal journey. A zone is the bridge between physical network infrastructure and the portal experience — it determines which login flow, branding, and access profile a user encounters based on which AP they connected through.

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The Zones grid showing zone name, assigned journey, device count, and status.

Key Fields

Field	Description
`name`	Human-readable display name for the zone (e.g., Lobby, Restaurant, Conference Rooms)
`description`	Optional notes — useful for documenting physical location, coverage area, or special policy details
`journey_id`	The captive portal journey assigned to this zone; all users connecting through any device in this zone will see this journey
`status`	`active` — zone is operational; `inactive` — zone is disabled and devices in it will not resolve a portal journey
`devices_count`	Read-only computed count of access points currently assigned to this zone

How Zones Work

When a user connects to a WiFi network and is intercepted by the captive portal, Kiwire resolves the experience in three steps:

Device lookup — the RADIUS NAS-IP-Address in the authentication request identifies which registered device (access point) the user connected through.
Zone resolution — Kiwire looks up which zone that device belongs to.
Journey load — Kiwire loads the captive portal journey linked to that zone, presenting the correct login flow, branding, and profile assignment rules to the user.

This three-step model makes it possible to serve completely different portal experiences from the same Kiwire installation. A hotel lobby can show a branded welcome page with a free-tier journey, while the executive lounge shows a streamlined corporate login tied to a higher-bandwidth profile — all managed from one tenant.

Design zones around intended user experience and access policy rather than physical room boundaries. For example, a single "Guest Internet" zone can span an entire floor if all APs in that area should show the same portal.

Available Actions

Add Zone

Click Add Zone to create a new zone. Required: name and journey_id. The zone will have no devices until you assign access points to it from the Device Controllers module.

Edit Zone

Click a zone row to open the edit panel. You can update the name, description, assigned journey, and status at any time. Changing the journey takes effect immediately — users who connect after the change will see the new portal flow.

Changing a zone's journey does not disconnect users who are already authenticated. Active sessions continue under the profile they were granted at login. Only new authentications will be directed to the updated journey.

Delete Zone

Removes the zone from Kiwire. Before deleting, any access points still assigned to this zone must be reassigned to another zone — Kiwire will block the deletion and display a warning if devices remain assigned.

Deleting a zone that still has devices assigned will be blocked. Reassign or remove all devices in the zone first. An orphaned device (a device with no zone) cannot resolve a portal journey and will fail to authenticate users.

View Devices in Zone

Click the device count badge on a zone row to see a filtered list of all access points assigned to that zone. From there you can click through to each device to update its configuration or reassign it to a different zone.

Zone Design Tips

Scenario	Recommended Zone Setup
Hotel — lobby & common areas with free tier	One "Guest" zone linked to a free-access journey; all lobby and corridor APs assigned here
Hotel — premium rooms with paid tiers	Separate "Premium" zone linked to a different journey offering room-charge billing or voucher login
Campus — student WiFi	"Students" zone linked to a journey with Google/Microsoft SSO login
Campus — staff WiFi	"Staff" zone linked to an Active Directory or LDAP journey with a longer session timeout
Retail — all stores same chain	One shared zone if all stores use identical branding and policy; per-store zones if each location is a separate tenant

Required Permissions

view-zones · create-zones · update-zones · delete-zones