User Self-Registration
How to enable users to sign up for new accounts, to assign network policies to self-registered users, and track usage.
Log into SputnikNet, then navigate to the user authentication system overview.
Log into SputnikNet and click on "Users" from the Authentication menu. Or simply click "Authentication" to start with a generic authentication system which you can configure as a user authentication system.
Add a new user authentication system, or select an existing one.
Click "Add New Authentication System" to do just that. Or, select a Authentication System from the list, as shown in this example.
Enable self sign-up
Click on "Edit Settings" from the Authentication System menu. Click the checkbox next to "Allow Self Sign-up?" Enter text for the self sign-up description and button, or use the defaults. Click "Update" to apply your changes.
User experience: how self sign-up works
Users see the self sign-up description and button on the captive portal.
User experience: creating a new account
Users must supply the following information to create a new account:
- Requested User ID: their login ID
- Your Full Name: user's "Display Name", which is used in SputnikNet and displayed to users on the welcome page shown after a successful login
- Password
Everything else is optional.
User experience: welcome page
Users briefly see a welcome page after they create their account, enabling them to pop up a session monitor window (even if their browser blocks pop-up windows).
View users in SputnikNet.
You can view all user accounts, including those created by self-signup, in SputnikNet. Click on a user's login ID to edit settings or delete the account.
Edit user account settings.
You have control over a number of user settings:
- Display Name: change the name of the user account displayed in SputnikNet and on welcome pages, as shown above
- Expires: change expiration date and time of the account (default is "Never")
- Password: note, if changed the new password is not sent to the user
- Title
- Organization
- Group membership: click checkboxes next to the group(s) you want to assign the user to; network policies inherited from the group(s) are applied to the user when they log in
You can also delete the user account.
By default, self sign-up users are not assigned to any group. However, you can create a "Guest" group, apply network policies to it, and manually assign self sign-up users to it. For more information about network policies, see the online documentation section titled "SputnikNet Network Policies".
Track user activity in SputnikNet.
To track user activity, click on "Client Sessions" from the REPORTS menu.
Client session details.
Browse or search for users whose activity you want to track. SputnikNet provides detailed reports on bandwidth usage by user account. For more information, see the online documentation section titled "SputnikNet Reports".