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Cloud and on-premises wireless

Purple on HPE Aruba: captive portal, MPSK and ClearPass

Aruba Central and Aruba Instant APs support an external captive portal for guests and RADIUS for staff and residents. Purple plugs into both and coexists with ClearPass Policy Manager where you already run it, so you add guest data capture and MPSK multi-tenancy without replacing your policy layer.

What Purple supports on HPE Aruba

Four capabilities are supported on HPE Aruba, the same four we list for it in the hardware integrations directory. Each one uses settings the Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface already has, so nothing new is installed on site.

Guest captive portal

The Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface redirects guests on your guest SSID to a Purple splash page, where they sign in by email, social login or SMS. Every sign-in becomes a consented first-party record you can report on and market to.

802.1X staff WiFi

Add Purple as the RADIUS server for your staff SSID and each person signs in with their own credentials rather than a shared password, so a leaver loses access the moment their account is removed.

Multi-tenant WiFi: Aruba MPSK and local user roles

Each resident, tenant or device group gets a personal key on one shared SSID. Purple manages the keys and the Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface enforces them.

Dynamic VLAN steering

Purple returns a VLAN with each RADIUS decision, so a user or key lands on the right network segment without an SSID per group.

Supported HPE Aruba platforms

Aruba Instant APs (IAP-505, AP-635), Mobility Conductor (AOS-8/AOS-10), Aruba Central, ClearPass Policy Manager

RADIUS servers, ports and the walled garden allowlist are maintained by our support team and can differ per deployment. Get the current HPE Aruba configuration from Purple Support.

How to set up Purple on HPE Aruba

A guest WiFi rollout on HPE Aruba follows the same five steps whatever the size of the estate. The step-by-step guides linked here cover the exact Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface screens.

  1. Check your platform is on the supported list

    Purple supports Aruba Instant APs (IAP-505, AP-635), Mobility Conductor (AOS-8/AOS-10), Aruba Central, ClearPass Policy Manager. If your controller or firmware is not listed, ask us before you start.

  2. Point the guest SSID at Purple in the Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface

    Set the guest network's captive portal or splash page to Purple's hosted portal and add Purple as its RADIUS server. The HPE Aruba setup guide walks through each screen.

  3. Add the walled garden and RADIUS details from Purple Support

    The walled garden entries and RADIUS servers are set per deployment and change over time, so take them from the hardware guide on support.purple.ai, not from a summary page.

  4. Build your splash page and choose sign-in methods

    Design the splash page in Purple, pick the login methods and data fields you need, and set consent wording for your region.

  5. Test on real devices, then roll out

    Connect with an iPhone, an Android phone and a laptop before you open the network to guests. If the portal does not appear, the troubleshooting guides below cover the usual causes.

Start with these HPE Aruba guides

Every HPE Aruba guide, by task

19 published guides name HPE Aruba in their title or cover it in depth. This list updates as new guides are published.

Captive portal and splash page setup (3)

802.1X, RADIUS and network access control (4)

iPSK, PPSK and per-device keys (1)

Troubleshooting (1)

Architecture, comparisons and planning (10)

What you can run on HPE Aruba

The integration is the entry point. These are the Purple products that run on top of it, each on the HPE Aruba hardware you already have.

Running more than one vendor?

Purple is one platform across mixed estates. The other hardware hubs cover the same four capabilities:

Comparing Purple with another guest WiFi or RADIUS platform instead? See every Purple comparison or captive portal software compared.

HPE Aruba and Purple: questions

Does Purple work with HPE Aruba?

Yes. On HPE Aruba, Purple provides the guest captive portal, cloud RADIUS for 802.1X staff WiFi, Aruba MPSK and local user roles for multi-tenant WiFi and dynamic VLAN steering. Supported platforms: Aruba Instant APs (IAP-505, AP-635), Mobility Conductor (AOS-8/AOS-10), Aruba Central, ClearPass Policy Manager.

Do I need to replace my HPE Aruba access points to use Purple?

No. Purple runs on the access points you already own. You configure the guest SSID in the Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface to redirect to Purple's hosted splash page and add Purple as a RADIUS server; the hardware stays as it is.

Where do I find the RADIUS servers and walled garden entries for HPE Aruba?

In the hardware guides on support.purple.ai. Those values are set per deployment and change over time, so we do not publish them on marketing pages or in guides. Always take them from Purple Support.

How does multi-tenant WiFi work on HPE Aruba?

With Aruba MPSK and local user roles. Each resident, tenant or device group gets its own key on a shared SSID, and Purple returns the matching VLAN over RADIUS, so each unit gets a private network without an SSID per unit.

Which HPE Aruba guide should I read first?

Start with "Aruba Central and Purple WiFi: cloud-managed integration". It covers the Aruba Central or Aruba Instant interface settings for the guest portal. The rest of the HPE Aruba guides on this page are grouped by task: portal setup, 802.1X and RADIUS, per-user keys and troubleshooting.

Can I run Purple across HPE Aruba and other hardware?

Yes. Purple is one platform across mixed estates, so sites on different vendors share the same splash pages, sign-in data, reporting and RADIUS policies. The hardware integrations directory lists every supported vendor.

See Purple on your HPE Aruba network

Tell us what you run today and we will show you the guest, staff and multi-tenant setup on your own hardware.