From the viewpoint of the end-user…

Connecting to InqPortal

It all depends on how you want to connect to your InqPortal. There are two ways… directly and through your local area network. We’ll start with the first one… direct.

Direct Connection

This method is the easiest as it is always available. You can use any WiFi enabled device, be it a laptop, Chrome book, Android, tablet, iPhone… basically anything that supports WiFi. This is the best way if you’re on the move or don’t have access to a hot-spot or home router. In this mode, you can typically connect four devices to InqPortal. If you need more, you’ll have to go to the Local Area Network connection.

  1. Power up your InqPortal.
  2. Open the WiFi connections window on your chosen device.
  3. Look for InqPortal, or something like that. If you have multiples or if it has been configured before, it may have had its SSID changed. Hopefully, whoever configured it, kept it similar. Connect to it. In this mode, InqPortal is acting like a tiny router and you are on its network.
  4. Note – Some devices will complain (Android) that the connection has no Internet available and ask if you want to stay connected. Please do, or the rest these steps won’t work.
  5. Next, open your favorite browser. Google Chrome, Chromium on Linux, FireFox, and Microsoft Edge are all known to work fine. Internet Explorer definitely doesn’t. Others haven’t been fully vested. Let us know… one way or another if your choice works.
  6. Browse to the address: http://10.10.10.10
  7. You’re ready to run!
  8. Hint – Bookmark and give it a friendly name.

Local Area Network

In addition to acting as a router, InqPortal can connect to your local area network router. Although this requires a little bit of setup, it’ll be a lot easer in the long run and you can connect a lot more devices to it through your router.

Note: Home router and personal hot-spots should work fine for InqPortal. However, most public routers at libraries and schools are locked down. Even if you have the credentials for them, they are often configured to not permit one device to connect to another as in say… your laptop connecting to InqPortal.

  1. First, you have to start out by using the Direct Connection method above. This will also give you access to the Administrative page.
  2. At step 6, browse to http://10.10.10.10/admin.html. You should see something like this:
  1. In the Client SSID and Client Password fields, enter your router’s credentials and press the Update button.
  2. After a few seconds you should get a Successful Connection notification (shown below).
  3. Write down the Client Server Address that is returned. You may need it in a moment.
  1. At this point, you can now disconnect your device from the InqPortal Direct Connection.
  2. Now any device connected to this same router will be able to reach your InqPortal.
  3. If your router is of fairly recent design, you will be able to reach your InqPortal by browsing to the same name you used for the direct connection. For instance if you direct connected via InqPortal, you will now be able to browse to http://InqPortal/. Make sure you use the prefix http://. Otherwise, Google will catch it and try to do a search on it.
  4. If this doesn’t work for you, it is likely your router doesn’t recognize InqPortal‘s hostname. If this is the case, simply browse to the Client Server Address you jotted down in step 5. In the example above, you would browse to: http://192.168.9.175
  5. Once connected, bookmark the page.

This is a one-time setup. After InqPortal is configured for your router you will not have to re-configure it. In the future, all you’ll need to do is power your InqPortal up. After a moment or two for it to boot, it’ll connect to your router after a few more seconds it should be available on your network. At that point, you’ll be able to go to step 10 and hit your bookmark.

Ready to run!