ImaraISPGlossary
The terms used across ImaraISP and these docs, in alphabetical order
Short definitions of the words you will meet in the admin app, the portal and this guide. Where a term has its own page, the entry links to it.
A
Acting tenant (switching)
A reseller or parent staff member can "switch" into a child tenant and work there as if they were its staff. While switched, a persistent banner reads "You are acting in {tenant} as {role} via {home}. Actions are logged." Every change is written to the child tenant, never to the staff member's own. See Managing your ISPs.
Audit log
The record of who did what, when, in your tenant. It always names both the tenant the person was acting in and the tenant they came from. Switch-ins, Mark paid, reconnects and viewing a router script are always logged.
Automatic login
The last step of a hotspot purchase. Once the payment is PAID, the portal receives a one-time login and hands it to the router itself, so the subscriber comes online without typing anything.
B
Billable unit
One thing your ImaraISP subscription counts: active subscribers, routers, SMS, payment transactions and so on. Your plan includes a quantity of each; usage above it is overage. Subscriber traffic is never a billable unit.
Branch
A tenant below an ISP, used for a second town or a franchise. It has its own admin address, portal and routers, and inherits visibility, roles and plan templates from its parent.
C
C2B
"Customer to business": a payment the subscriber starts themselves by paying your business number with their account number as the reference, for example to an M-Pesa Paybill. It arrives as a provider callback and is matched by the account reference. A wrong reference sends it to the Unmatched queue.
Captive portal
The page a hotspot user is sent to before they can browse. In ImaraISP it lives at
portal.imaraisp.ke/{slug} and is styled with your logo and colours. The router only
hosts a redirect to it. See The captive portal.
E
Expiry
The moment a service's paid period ends. After it, the service enters grace, then expires, and the subscriber is disconnected. A payment extends the expiry by the plan's validity.
G
Go-live checklist
The Settings page that lists what must be true before you start selling: a provider configured, a plan, a router online, a published portal, and so on. See Go-live checklist.
Grace
The days after expiry during which a subscriber is still allowed online, to give them time to pay. Set per plan (3 days by default). Shown in amber in the customer list.
H
Hard cap
An optional limit on a billable unit in your subscription. When set, creating a new service, router or seat past the cap is refused with an upgrade link. Existing ones are untouched. Without a hard cap, nothing is blocked and overage simply accrues.
Hotspot
Wi-Fi access sold per session or time block, usually to walk-in users. The router checks each device with the login server after the captive portal purchase. Compare PPPoE.
I
IPN
Instant Payment Notification: the callback a payment provider posts to
ipn.imaraisp.ke/{slug}/{provider}/{token} when money moves. See
Hosts and URLs.
L
Ledger
The per-customer money book. Every PAID payment is recorded on it; a reversal is recorded as a negative amount. Amounts always carry an explicit currency.
Login server
The service behind every subscriber login (RADIUS, in router terms). Routers ask it "may this user connect, and at what speed?" and report session usage to it. ImaraISP updates it on every service change; you never edit it directly.
O
OTP
One-time password: the code sent by SMS to a subscriber's phone to sign in to the portal account area, or to a cashier or technician signing in to the admin app.
Overage
Usage of a billable unit above what your subscription includes. It is billed per unit at the overage rate, shown as a banner and on the Your subscription meters, and never cuts anything off.
P
Paybill
M-Pesa's name for a business number, for example in Kenya. Subscribers pay it with their account number as the reference and payments arrive as C2B callbacks. With M-Pesa switched on, Pay now's Paid at tab reads "Paid at Paybill".
Plan
What you sell: a name, a speed, a price, a validity period and grace days. Plans are either PPPoE (home or business links) or hotspot. Changing a plan takes effect on the subscriber's next reconnect. See Plans.
PPPoE
The way a fixed home or business link authenticates: the customer's router dials in with a username and password, which the login server checks. Usernames are unique within your ISP. Compare hotspot.
R
Receipt
The provider's transaction code for a payment, for example an M-Pesa code. It is the identity of the payment in ImaraISP: no two payments can carry the same one, and a second announcement of the same receipt is ignored as a duplicate. See Payment states.
Reconnect
The action that tells a router to apply a subscriber's new plan or expiry right away, so a paid subscriber is online within seconds without logging in again. It runs automatically after every payment and is also a button on the customer's profile.
Reseller
A tenant whose children are ISPs. Reseller staff can switch into their ISPs, see across the whole subtree, and bill them on their own terms. Money always books to the tenant that owns the service. See Managing your ISPs.
RouterOS v7
The MikroTik operating system version ImaraISP requires. Version 7 has the built-in tunnel support the connection depends on; version 6 cannot join. Check under System, Packages in Winbox before adding a router.
S
Service
A customer's live subscription to one plan: the username, the plan, the expiry, and the state (active, grace, expired, suspended). One customer can hold more than one service. Payments extend a service.
STK push
The payment prompt your provider sends to a subscriber's phone asking them to approve it with their PIN, for example M-Pesa's prompt in Kenya. Pay now sends it; the subscriber confirms; the payment settles when the provider confirms. "No prompt on the phone? Resend" is the usual fix.
Subscriber
An end customer of your ISP: a household on PPPoE, a business link, or a walk-in hotspot user. In the admin app they are listed under Customers; each one has a phone number, which is the universal search key.
Subscription (yours)
Your ISP's own plan with ImaraISP (or with your reseller): which billable units are included, at what price, and the current usage meters. Found under Settings, Your subscription. Its status never affects your subscribers' connectivity. See Your subscription.
T
Tenant
One workspace in ImaraISP: an ISP, a reseller or a branch. Each tenant has its own slug, admin address, staff, customers, routers and portal. Data never crosses from one tenant to another except through an explicit switch by authorised staff.
Trusted device
A phone or laptop a subscriber chose to remember when signing in to the portal account area. It skips the OTP for 90 days. Support can "forget" a device from the customer's profile if the phone was lost.
U
Unmatched
A payment that arrived but could not be safely tied to a customer: wrong account reference, short amount, or a charge confirmed after the payment was written off. It waits in the Unmatched queue on Payments until a cashier matches it. Money is never dropped.
V
Voucher
A pre-paid hotspot code you print or sell over the counter. The subscriber types it in the portal instead of paying through a payment provider. Generated and tracked in batches under Vouchers. See Vouchers.
W
Walled garden
The short list of sites a hotspot user can reach before they have paid: the portal and the payment pages, plus up to 20 hostnames you add in the Hotspot portal editor (one exact hostname per line, no wildcards). Everything else is blocked until the session is authorised.
Winbox
MikroTik's desktop tool for managing a router. The onboarding script from Add router is pasted into Winbox's terminal (or the RouterOS terminal directly).
WireGuard tunnel
The encrypted connection every router opens to ImaraISP. Logins, reconnects and router management all travel inside it, so you never open a port on your router to the internet. The onboarding script sets it up; keys are shown once.