Welcome Page For Wireless Network

[Slatz]

I would like to install a welcome page for our wireless network. We have about 50 clients that currently hook up to our free wireless network. I would like a page installed like motels and hotels have.

EX: Welcome to the Slatz Network, enter your password to gain access. Agree to terms and conditions etc. Once they enter the credentials they are allowed to surf the net at will.

Anyone know how to accomplish this?

This is just an XP box that has a wireless n router attached to it. No domain controllers or DHCP servers.

 

[masteryoda34]

I think you might be able to accomplish this with some customized firmware like DD-WRT. Not sure though.

 

[jlazzaro]

i've done this with BlueCoat proxies, and im fairly certain Squid has similar functionality. it will require a good bit of leg work on your part to get going.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/...ge-using-squid-746411/

 

[Slatz]

So I will obviously have to run this from a Redhat Linux box I assume. And then install the squid app seperately or work with the Bluecoat proxies? Do you have a link to the bluecoat proxies?

 

[jlazzaro]

the BlueCoat ProxySG is an appliance solution that will run you a few thousand dollars even for the SG210. its a full forward proxy, web filtering, bandwidth management, caching, optimization, reporting, etc.

Squid of course is free, and is a more feasible solution in these types of small installations.

 

[Slatz]

Just had a look at the bluecoat proxies. Why have I never heard of these guys. This stuff is very interesting and expensive. I see what you mean. I will def check out bluecoat for other clients, very nice stuff.

Thanks for the help, I think I will go with squid for my current needs, pretty much a no brainer.

 

[JackMDS]

While I know nothing about this service and whether it is worth while. It might be a solution in variety of circumstances.

http://www.tomizone.com/hotspot_owners

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Slatz
Just had a look at the bluecoat proxies. Why have I never heard of these guys. This stuff is very interesting and expensive. I see what you mean. I will def check out bluecoat for other clients, very nice stuff.

Thanks for the help, I think I will go with squid for my current needs, pretty much a no brainer.

Yeah, squid is free and works well. I run it here. The squid program is the caching proxy part. If you need rules and schedules to control access then install squidGuard as well. There is also a reporting engine called Squid Report Generator (srg) that will let you look at traffic, requests, etc.

Getting it up and running is not a huge hassle if you are confident of editing .conf files, and understand IP addresses and curly braces .

Typically you would set up the router so that it only provides WAN access to the machine with the MAC address of the proxy server. Everyone else is denied. To make things easier on yourself you should set up support for automatic proxy detection. I've never done that so can't help. As for the authentication step before you let the clients out, there may be a squid module for that, but I am not sure.

 

[spidey07]

d-link and other SOHO routers do this. It's called a "captive portal". A few mouse clicks and you're ready to go.

 

[drebo]

Barracuda also makes a device for this which works very well. It can do kerberos or NTLM authentication against an AD domain and supports single-signon. It can use AD security group objects to manage who can visit what websites, etc.

 

[tbooth]

We use the captive portal feature in m0n0wall for this and it works pretty well.

http://m0n0.ch/wall/

 

[arch113]

PFSense will also do this

http://pfsense.org

 

[Slatz]

Thanks guys for the help, appreciate it. I have chosen to go with Redhat linux server 5 which has squid preinstalled.