How to set up a wireless network that requires user authentication?

How to create a professional commercial WiFi hotspot

In some hotels, restaurants, cafes, business centers or other businesses abroad, we can often see using wireless Wifi networks provided by businesses to surf the Internet with laptops or mobile phones.

This is a very good means, the guests get convenience, and the merchants win the passenger flow.

In fact, setting up an ordinary home WiFi hotspot is very simple. It can be realized by ordinary wireless router. But in business situations, this method often can't meet the demand. Since there is no security verification mechanism for ordinary families to open WiFi hotspots, any user can use the hotspots, and even users other than merchants can "surf the Internet". This greatly affects the security of network hotspots and the stability of the network. Even if authentication methods such as WEP or WAP are used, it is difficult to completely guarantee the security of hotspots, and it will also greatly limit the convenience of hotspots.

The way to create professional commercial WiFi hotspots is to provide a Web authentication page for users who want to use hotspots, usually through a compulsory portal/hotspot management system. Based on this authentication page, various authentication methods are provided for users. Users can only access Wifi hotspots and use the Internet after authentication. At the same time, merchants can also use the background of the mandatory web portal system to realize certain interaction with customers. For example, users can be prompted to use hotspot protocols before user authentication; Or publish advertisements of merchants or sponsors; Push the latest promotion information of merchants to customers. Even hot users can be required to pay a certain fee online before being allowed to visit hot spots and so on. General merchants can also implement some advanced security settings in the background of the mandatory network port system. Such as client blacklist restriction, address restriction, flow control, etc.

There are many ways to establish such a mandatory portal/hotspot management system. But the technical principles are similar. Generally, firewall/gateway system and background system are needed for authentication management and control.

Common technical solutions include NoCat, Wifidog, Chillispot, etc. The construction of this kind of system has various system requirements and construction methods, and it is relatively complicated because of many components and subsystems.

In addition, there are some complete service provider solutions, such as FON, Wiwiz, ile sans fil, Sputnik and FreeSpot. The configuration is relatively simple. Generally, users only need to purchase the wireless router equipment provided by these service providers or configure their own gateway equipment, and the background system can use the background services provided by these service providers.

This paper focuses on Wiwiz, because Wiwiz not only has a Chinese version, but also has the most flexible installation and configuration methods. The most convenient thing is that Wiwiz can use the user's ready-made wireless router or AP equipment. If the wireless router has already installed or supported DD-WRT firmware, it only needs simple setup. If the user's wireless router does not support DD-WRT, you can also use the user's local computer or virtual machine. For detailed methods, please refer to the documentation of Wiwiz official website (www.wiwiz.com).