Click-Through with Sponsorship (Guest Authentication plus Walled Garden)
How to create a click-through captive portal using guest authentication with walled garden policies to enable display of externally hosted sponsor content.
Navigate to the guest authentication system overview.
Log into SputnikNet and click on "Guests" from the Authentication menu. Or simply click "Authentication" to start with a generic authentication system which you can configure as a guest authentication system.
Add a new guest authentication system.
Click on "Add New Authentication System" to do just that.
Name your new guest authentication system.
For more information on basic authentication system settings, see the online documentation chapter titled "Creating a new Authentication System".
Configure guest authentication settings.
- Leave "Allow DHCP login?" and "Require an Access Code?" unchecked. This will force the user to click a login button on a captive portal page to get internet access, but will not require that they enter a code.
- Select a "Guest Expiration Interval" if you want to set an amount of time after which the user will need to log in again. This is useful if you have an advertising-driven site and want to force periodic viewing of the captive portal.
- Select "Guest Blackout Period" if you want to set an amount of time during which users will be prevented from logging in again after their initial session expires (based on client MAC address).
- Check "Display Greeting?" if you want to show a greeting on the captive portal's login form.
- Enter text or HTML into the "Greeting Text " field. This text is show above the login field/button.
- Enter text or HTML into the "Proceed Prompt" field. This text is shown to the left of the login button.
- Enter text into the "Proceed Label" field. This will appear in the login button. You have complete control over the appearance of the login button. See the online documentation chapter titled "Advanced Captive Portal Techniques" for more information.
Click "Update Configuration" to apply your new settings.
Navigate to the network policies overview.
Sponsor content is frequently hosted on a server external to SputnikNet. In order for that content to display on the captive portal (before the user logs in), you need a walled garden "allow" rule to the sponsor's domain.
Click on "Network Policies" from the CONFIG menu.
Add a new network policy.
Click on "Define New Network Policy" to do just that.
Configure a walled garden policy.
- Name: enter the name of your walled garden policy, or leave blank if you want SputnikNet to generate one for you
- Action: set to "Allow/Accept", since this is a walled garden rule that allows pre-authenticated access to an external domain
- Protocol: set to "TCP" - standard web protocol
- Match Destination Hostname: enter the domain where the sponsor content is hosted; leave off "http://www"
- Is Dynamic: check "Interval" and set a time that tells SputnikNet how often the IP address of the domain should be checked for any change
- Match Destination IP or Network/Netmask: leave blank
- TCP or UDP Port: set to 80 - standard web port
Click "Add Policy" to create the new walled garden policy.
Navigate to the captive portals overview.
Click "Captive Portals" from the CONFIG menu.
Create a new captive portal or edit an existing one.
Click "Add New Captive Portal" from the captive portal list to do just that. Or click on the name of a captive portal to edit an existing one.
Design your captive portal to pull content from the sponsor's web site.
Here we've added a simple HTML src tag to pull an image from the sponsor's web site. Any time the sponsor changes the image, the captive portal will update automatically.
Apply the guest authentication system to your captive portal.
Click on "Walled Garden and Authentication" from the captive portal properties page, click the check box next to the authentication system and walled garden policy created earlier and click "Update".
Apply the captive portal to a Sputnik-powered device, and test it.
Apply your captive portal to one or more Sputnik-powered devices ("routers"). Finally, test your click-through authentication system by logging on as a user. Here the walled garden rule enables the sponsor's graphics to appear in the captive portal. Also, users can browse the sponsor's web site before logging onto the internet.