MountainGoat

I'm looking at a way of configuring an open access wireless system for a local holiday resort, and am trying to work out how to get the initial page of what anyone sees to be an 'offers' web page for the resort, so even though the system is 'free' it has the potential to earn some money.

The idea that I am taking, is like the log in systems on some public access networks (coffee shops, libraries, airports, etc), where the browser opens up and then auto-directs to the 'buy connection time' or 'enter user details' page.

Anyone done anything similar to this?

I'm thinking its a static route setting, but I am not too up on the networking side of things.

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underdog

Hi,
The technique you're describing is called captive portal. I don't have any experience in setting these things up, but maybe if you tweak around enough you can set it all up to work without logging in and then have a firewall redirect the first website request to a website of your own.

MountainGoat

Nice one, thanks underdog. That is exactly what I was thinking of, but I was more sure it was down to the static route, but I have learnt something new today!

Now it is time to drown in some coffee and work out how the hell to write this proposal for the company in Català!!!

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I would change the world, but they would not give me the source code.

underdog

I did some searching on google and found this. Don't know if it'll help you or not, but I thought the idea sounded interesting and as the geek I am I wanted to find a way to do it

But before hacking together your own solution I would check out other projects to see if they're capable of being modded to your needs.

Good luck

MountainGoat

Thank you once again! I am going to have a good look through all of this at the weekend, but it has just re-sparked an idea that I had for a totally different thing, which I think may just be a nice money earner, what with the rise of the 'need it right now' information culture ... and if you are geek, then it may interest you. PM me when you get five minutes.

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I would change the world, but they would not give me the source code.

riscphree

I've set up a few NoCat/NoCatAuth portal systems, I think they may be the route you could consider.

See here, NoCatNet

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