Settings ¶

This section sorts out all the available options to configure the Hotspot in four main groups: Main, SmartConnect™, API, and Language.

Main ¶

This page contains all the System settings, divided in four parts: In the first one, Portal, it is possible to define default values for the portal appearance; in the second one, Global Settings allows to specify some option used by the various parts of the Hotspot; in the third one, Accounts, common options for the account are defined; and in the fourth, the Character set for generated passwords used in Quick Ticket are chosen.

Warning

Some change in the settings in the Portal and Global Settings will cause all connect users to be forcibly logged off. Those settings are marked with a red asterisk in the GUI.

Portal

The first box encompasses the following option that can be customised:

Homepage after successful login

The URL of a web page that will be shown to the user after a successful login.

Portal Background Homepage

The URL used as the background image for the Hotspot login portal.

Show login form

Choose from a drop-down menu how the Hotspot login form is displayed:

immediately will display the login form immediately over the background homepage.
manually will display the background homepage with a top navigation bar allowing the user to access the registration page at any time, with the home site being browsable without any user registration: This proves useful to promote an own Web site or to provide some information. Access to all other sites will still require registration, although sites listed in Allowed sites (see below) can always be accessed.
after x seconds will display the login form after a user-specified period of seconds over the background homepage (user is notified of impending registration time on the navigation bar).

Use mini portal for mobile devices

This option governs which types of portal are served by the Hotspot. Besides the standard portal there are two more available: One without Javascripts and one tailored for mobile devices. When this option is checked, all the three types of portal are served, whereas if it not, then only the standard portal is offered to the users.

New in version 2.5: The no-javascript and mobile-oriented portals

Allowed Sites

The sites or IP addresses accessible even without being authenticated, i.e., those sites that can be visited by anyone. One site per line is allowed, in the form of either a normal domain name or a string of the format protocol:IP[/mask]:port, e.g. www.endian.com or tcp:192.168.20.0/24:443. Take into account that if the pages incorporate some widgets, javascripts, or other components from sites outside this list, they could not be loaded correctly.

Global Settings

Hotspot name: A name given to identify the hotspot.
Items per page: The pagination value, i.e., the maximum number of items of a list or table per page that are displayed.
Currency: The currency used in all the calculations of payments in the Hotspot.

Note

Some currency is not supported by PayPal, therefore it can not be used for SmartConnect tickets.
Popular Countries: Popular countries are listed first in the list of Countries presented to the users when they register, in order to reduce the time needed for the whole registration process.
Enable AnyIP: This option enables the AnyIP feature, which should assist clients not using DHCP and allow them to access the Hotspot even with a static IP that does not fall within the Hotspot’s (BLUE zone) IP subnet.
Bandwidth limiting: The default upload and download limits per user in Kilobyte/s. If these fields are left empty, then no limit is applied.

Note

Remember that in one KB there are 8 kilobit, so make sure to enter appropriate values in the fields.
DHCP dynamic range: When this option is enabled by ticking the checkbox, dynamic IP addresses are assigned to the devices connected to the hotspot.
Dynamic IPs range: This option appears when the previous one is active and allows to specify a custom range of IP addresses within the BLUE zone to be dynamically assigned to the hotspot’s client.

Accounts

Require user authentication

Tick the checkbox if you want that clients accessing the Hotspot need a valid, registered account.

New in version 2.5.

Require users to accept the ‘Terms of Service’ on login

When this option is selected, the user is asked to accept the Terms of Service right before the login.

New in version 2.5.

Password recovery

Allow a user that has lost or forgotten her credentials to be able to reset them. Three options can be chosen:

Disabled: No password recovery is allowed
Using SmartConnect settings: The credentials are sent via the same means used in SmartConnect™
Using custom settings: Personalised settings can be defined (see the box below).

New in version 2.5.

Note

It is possible to allow anonymous login (i.e., without user authentication), but requiring all the users to agree with and accept the Terms of Service. To do so, it is first necessary to create a ticket of type post-paid, then to disable option Require user authentication and enable Require users to accept the ‘Terms of Service’ on login. If the post-paid ticket has been created with a given validity, after that period the user will again be required to accept the Terms of Service.

Timeout for idle users: The time of inactivity after which a user logged out (default is 15 minutes, i.e., after 15 minutes of inactivity a user is automatically logged out), so that the user does not waste too much of the ticket’s validity.
Default account lifetime (days): The number of days an account is valid (default is 365 days). After that number of days have passed, the user automatically becomes inactive.
Allow deletion of used accounts: This options allows the deletion of accounts that have already used parts of their tickets. If selected, the next option appears.
Avoid deleting users who bought tickets with SmartConnect: This checkbox appears when the previous option has been selected. By default it is enabled, suggesting that users who already bought tickets by credit card with SmartConnect not be deleted from the system.

New in version 2.5.
Delete disabled accounts on a daily basis: Enable the automatic deletion of disabled user accounts on a daily basis.

Character set for Generated Passwords

The second part of the main settings allows the choice of the default values for the passwords that are automatically generated, for example when creating bulk of tickets. The following values for the passwords can be customised: The length, whether to use uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, or additional special characters. By default, passwords will be 6 character long and composed only by digits.

Password recovery custom settings.

When choosing to allow password recovery with custom setting, several configuration options appear, that are needed for a successful recovery process. The first one is the modalities by which recovery is done:

Password recovery is done: There are three choices for this option: via SMS, via e-mail, or both. Depending on the choice, different options appear, to configure how to send the SMS or the e-mail. Note that all options appear if both e-mail and SMS password recovery are enabled.

For the SMS recovery mode, there is only one additional option:

Allowed country codes for password recovery: It is possible to allow the sending of SMS only to those cell phones that belong to the selected countries. To add a new country code, start writing the country’s name or code in the Multiselect box above the countries’ list until the country’s name appears in the box underneath, select it, and finally click on the + on the right of the country’s name. Allowed countries appear in the right-hand side box and can be disallowed by clicking on the - on their right.

For the e-mail recovery mode, two options are available.

Mail server

The SMTP server used to send the recovery email. It is possible to choose among three option from the drop-down menu.

System SMTP server. To be able to choose this option, the Menubar ‣ Proxy ‣ SMTP must be activated.
Custom SMTP server. In this case, the name of the mail server can be specified in the textbox.

Sender email address

A custom e-mail address that will be used as the custom sender of the recovery e-mail.

An additional option is also available for both recovery modes:

Limit password recovery to: The interval of time that must pass before trying to recover the password another time. Only one out of four options can be selected from the drop-down menu: once every 10 minutes, once every 30 minutes, once every hour, and once every day.

SmartConnect ¶

On this page it is possible to configure the SmartConnect™ (self-service) and SmartLogin functionalities of the Hotspot. The SmartConnect™ system fully supports paid self-service ticket creation or the use of free tickets with no customer payment, while SmartLogin offers to the user the possibility to avoid the need of re-authenticate to the Hotspot closing and opening the browser. When not yet enabled, the first time this page is open, there is only one option available:

SmartConnect

Enable SmartConnect: The SmartConnect™ feature is activated only if this checkbox is ticked.

As soon as SmartConnect™ is enabled, additional options will show up, to allow more control over this functionality:

Self-Service user registration

This drop-down menu allows to select the modality to notify the user of the successful account registration. Three mutually exclusive (i.e., only one can be selected at a time) options are available: via SMS, via E-mail, and no notification at all (disabled). Depending on the choice, additional options become available.

New in version 2.5: Registration via E-mail.

Disabled: no additional options available. No new user can be created via SmartConnect™, though existing SmartConnect™ users are allowed to navigate and buy tickets.
SMS. The activation of this option requires the availability of SMS bundles, used to send the confirmation to the user, that can verified under System ‣ Event Notifications ‣ SMS Notifications. Additional SMS bundles can be purchased from the Endian Network. These additional options are available:

Do not require phone number confirmation

Disable the request to write twice the cellphone number to which to send the confirmation. Useful when compiling the request on a smartphone.

New in version 2.5.

Allowed Country Codes

Only the cellphones that belong to the selected countries are allowed to register for SmartConnect™ access. To add a new country, start writing the country’s name or code in the Multiselect box above the countries’ list until the country’s name appears in the box underneath, select it, and finally click on the + on the right of the country’s name. Allowed countries appear in the right-hand side box and can be disallowed by clicking on the - on their right.
E-mail. An e-mail with the access credentials is sent to the e-mail address provided during the registration process. A confirmation link is also included, that should be clicked for the user to successfully complete the process and activate the account. This option requires a smarthost or SMTP server.

Do not require email address confirmation

Disable the request to write twice the email address to which to send the confirmation. Useful when compiling the request on a smartphone.

Ticket rate for email address verification

This drop-down menu allows the selection of one among the available rates to allow a user to connect for a short time for her to read and receive the confirmation email.

Hint

The rates that can be selected here need to be defined as time-based and pre-paid, from ticket creation validity, and not enabled for SmartConnect™.

Mail server

This drop down menu allows the choice of the smarthost that will send the email with the access credentials. The available options are: Custom mail server, in which the URL of a customised mail server can be provided, System smarthost, and System SMTP proxy. The latter options are available only if a smarthost and a SMTP proxy have been configured and are running on the appliance.

Sender email address

A custom e-mail address that will appear as the sender of the confirmation e-mail.

Fields for user registration

In this multiselect box it is possible to define which are the compulsory account’s attributes to be provided during the registration process. The attributes that are presented to the user appear in the right-hand side column, along with the required or optional mark. The total number of optional or required attributes is shown at the top of the left-hand side.

Note

Depending on the User Registration type, some field are mandatory and cannot be disabled. When registration by email is enabled, Username, Password, and Email address are required, while when registration by sms is active, only the Phone number is required and will act as the username.

Limit free tickets per account

The amount of free tickets that can be used by every account. The default option is “no limit”, meaning that new tickets can be purchased at every moment, but there’s the option “time limit” that allow users to purchase one new free ticket only every that given amount of minutes.

Enable Paid Tickets

This option allows users to pay for Hotspot tickets by using Paypal or a credit card. When enabled, this feature allows to configure a PayPal account on which the payments will be collected.

Warning

If this option is activated while users are connected to the Hotspot, they will all be forcibly disconnected.

Enable Paypal Sandbox: This box enables or disables the PayPal sandbox for testing/demo purposes only: Using the sandbox permits to verify that the Paypal API integration works, without actually running live transactions with real money.
Paypal API Username: The PayPal API username.
Paypal API Password: The PayPal API password.
Paypal API Signature: The PayPal API signature.

Note

In order to properly setup the SmartConnect™ functionality of the Endian Hotspot and receive customer payments, it is necessary to sign up and create a PayPal account.

API ¶

Changed in version 2.5: APIs were under the System Settings (Main) menu.

This section controls the settings of the Endian Hotspot’s API, that allows the integration of the Hotspot of Endian UTM Appliance into an already running system. Depending on the chosen Mode, different parameters can be set.

Mode: Version 2.5 of the Endian UTM Appliance provides three different API modes: Endian‘s generic API/JSON, the ASA jHotel, and the pcs phoenix interfaces. The ASA jHotel and the pcs phoenix interfaces are only needed by hotels that use the ASA jHotel or the pcs phoenix hotel management software, respectively, whereas the generic API can be exploited to interact with other software systems. The three available modes are mutually exclusive, i.e., they can be activated one at a time. If there is one of the three interfaces enabled, and a different one is enabled, then only the latter is active, while the former is automatically disabled.

New in version 2.5: The pcs phoenix interface.

The other configuration options depend on the selected Mode. The following are the option to specify for the ASA jHotel mode.

ASA jHotel Interface enabled: By ticking this checkbox the ASA jHotel interface is enabled.
ASA jHotel URL: The URL of the ASA jHotel management interface. Its correctness can be tested by clicking on the Test button on the right of the input box.

Hint

In the sample URL provided, replace the IP_ADDRESS of the ASA installation and the COMPANY name.
Allow guest registration (Guest Login / SmartConnect): Allow a guest to self register by ticking this checkbox.
Guest registration default rate: Select the default rate that will be applied to new accounts from this drop-down menu. The available rates should already have been defined in Ticket ‣ Rates.
Allow non-free post paid tickets for guests that are not checked in.: Tick the checkbox to allow non checked-in hotel guests to buy post paid tickets.

New in version 2.5.

Hotspot access with the ASA jHotel management software.

Any user that already has an account in the ASA management software can quickly access the Hotspot without the need to create an account, provided that the Hotspot is correctly configured. The steps needed on the Hotspot are:

Tick the ASA jHotel Interface enabled checkbox and verify the the Hotspot can access the URL of the ASA jHotel interface.
Under Ticket ‣ Rates, create a new postpaid rate, with Ticket Code the id used by ASA and give it a unique name (e.g., “my-ASA”).
Go back to Settings ‣ API, and choose the ASA jHotel mode and choose as Guest registration default rate the rate name created in the previous step (“my-ASA”.

For the Generic API/JSON or the pcs phoenix interface, there are three options available:

API enabled: Tick the checkbox to enable the API.
Accounting URL: The Hotspot will send accounting information to this URL, to verify the data supplied by the user. Leave this field empty if the Hotspot should not accounting.
Accounting URL requires HTTP Authentication: If the URL provided in the previous option requires HTTP authentication, tick this checkbox. Two new text fields will appear to supply the username and password, respectively.

Finally, the API can be tested on the special page https://GREENIP:10443/admin/api/, in case the Generic API/JSON interface has been chosen.

Language ¶

The Language section allows to set all the language-dependent options and customise all the string shown in the various languages and the portal templates. The page is organised in two boxes: Supported Languages, Edit Languages, with a third one showing up depending on the Edit choice made in the second box.

Supported Languages

In the first box it is possible to choose which languages are supported in the Hotspot and made available to the users. The languages must be selected in the multi-select box and then saved by clicking on the Store button. Only languages selected here will be available to the users during the registration process and when they connect to the portal.

Edit Languages

In the second box it is possible to modify either one of the four portal templates or the user interface strings, for every language activated in the previous box. To personalise the templates and the strings, there are several variables that can be used. When a message shall be sent to a user -for example, she lost her account’s password- each variable is replaced by an actual values, taken from the data stored in the Hotspot.

Language: The language for which to modify or add the translations. The available options from the drop-down menu depend on the activated languages.

Edit

The object(s) to modify. They can be either the Portal Templates or the Portal Strings. If the choice was to modify the Portal Strings, the editor is replaced by a list of the English words and sentences, used across the Hotspot’s GUI and portal, each with an input box in which to write the translation in the chosen language. For the Portal Templates choice, one of the templates can be edited in the box that opens: Welcome Page, Account Print, Terms of Service, Help, Email body, and Lost password email body.

New in version 2.5: The Email body, and Lost password email body templates.

To learn more details on how to customise the portal, skip to Hotspot customisation below.

The content of each template can be changed and personalised with the help of a fully featured WYSIWYG editor.

Hotspot customisation

The portal presented to the users when they first connect to the Hotspot can be customised in several ways: the Language used in the portal, the text contained in the various pages, the CSS, the logo of the company running the Hotspot, and the portal’s name. The last setting can be configured only from the CLI, while all other can be carried out from the Hotspot’s administration interface, in the Languages section (Hotspot ‣ Administration Interface ‣ Settings ‣ Languages)

Available languages.

There are six languages that are active by default: en (English, also used as default), de (German), it (Italian), ja (Japanese), es (Spanish), pt (Portuguese). A user connecting to the portal can select to customise each of the language. Additional languages can be served by the hotspot, by choosing them from the multi-select box the desired languages

Templates.

These are the templates that can be modified:

Welcome Page: The page presented to the user before logging in.
Account Print: A welcome message printed and handed out to the users after their registration along with their username and password. These are the variables that can be used: $title, $firstname, $lastname, $username, $password.
Terms of Service: They are presented to the user when clicking the link next to the checkbox asking them to accept the Terms of Service before being able to login.
Help: The content of this page will be shown to the user as an help message.
Email body: The text to be included in the e-mail sent with the user’s credentials upon registering, used when registration by email is active. These are the variables that can be used: $hotspot_name, $activation_link, $rate_name, $username, $password, $amount, $price, $currency, $txn_id.

New in version 2.5.
Lost password email body: The text to be included in the e-mail sent with the user’s credentials , used when the user lost them and the password recovery by email option is selected. These are the variables that can be used: $username, $password

New in version 2.5.

Each of the template can be edited for every language avavilable on the hotspot and can make use of the pre-defined variables (see these tables.

Text and images.

The content of the portal, be it images or text, can be modified from the editor, from which it is also possible to upload custom images, CSS and other files. To use the editor, go to the Edit Languages section, choose Portal Templates from the drop-down menu next to the Edit: label, then select the template from the drop-down menu below -labeled with Template- among those available:

Welcome Page: The page that all the user see before connecting.
Account print: The document to be printed and handed in to the user with her credentials.
Terms of Service: The rules that user shall follow during the use of the Hotspot.
Help: The page containing help and troubleshooting for the user.
Email body: The text of the e-mail sent to the user as confirmation for the successful account creation.
Lost password email body: The text of the e-mail sent to the user as a reminder of her credential to access the Hotspot.

In the editor at the bottom of the page it is possible to create documents with text and images. Adding images and custom files s indeed very simple: Put the curson on the point in which to insert an image, then click on the insert button to open a pop-up window called Image Properties. Here, in the Image Info tab, there are two alternatives to insert an image:

Provide an hyperlink to an image on the web in the URL textfield
Click on the Browse Server button to open a file browser and either choose an existing image on the server, or click on the Choose File button on the bottom of the page, to select an image from the local workstation, then click on the Upload button..

Hint

The uploaded files will be stored on the Endian UTM Appliance into the /home/httpd/html/userfiles/ directory. Custom files can be also directly uploaded e.g., via SSH in that location.

CSS.

Custom CSS files can also be used: Upload them to the Endian UTM Appliance, placing them in the /home/httpd/html/userfiles directory. Like image files, they can be uploaded using the insert button or via SSH. The file shall be named:

hotspotcustom.css, the CSS used for the administration interface
portalcustom.css, the CSS used for the the Hotspot portal
miniportalcustom.css, the CSS used for the Hotspot mini portal, i.e., the one with javascript disabled, tailored for mobile devices.

Hint

The original of these files can be found in the /home/httpd/html/include directory, and are named hotspot.css, portal.css and miniportal.css, respectively. They can be used as a basis for the custom ones.

Logo.

The logo that appears to the users on the portal can be replaced by using custom CSS portalcustom.css or miniportalcustom.css files. Upload the logo in the /home/httpd/html/userfiles directory (which shall be around 80x20 pixels in size), then modify the CSS files like:

div.logo img { display: none; }
div.logo { background-image: url('images/your-logo.png'); }

Hotspot name.

The operation of changing the domain name to the portal must be done manually from the CLI. The CLI access to the Endian UTM Appliance can be enabled under Menubar ‣ System ‣ SSH access (see Section Accessing the Endian UTM Appliance for directions).

Warning

Editing and modifying by hand any configuration file from the CLI file requires some acquaintance with the Endian UTM Appliance internals, since a a wrong edit to a file may cause a service to stop. It is recommended to be careful and it is suggested to save a backup copy of any file before editing it.

To change the Hotspot hostname and domain name, edit as root the file /var/efw/hotspot/settings, using e.g., the installed nano editor, and look for the lines, which are actually variable definitions (the values shown here are only examples):

HOTSPOT_HOSTNAME=hotspot
HOTSPOT_DOMAINNAME=example.com

Replace the values on the right-hand side (hotspot and example.com) with custom ones.

Moreover, since the connection to the captive portal is encrypted, a valid SSL configuration is also required, which amounts to create:

a valid certificate (i.e., no self signed one)
a private key file, not encrypted, and
a file containing the SSL key chain for the certificate.

These files can be created in any directory, although the suggested best practice is to copy these files under /var/efw/hotspot/ as well, to ensure that they are part of every configuration backup. Once all the certificates have been created, is is necessary also to make the Hotspot engine aware of their existence and to overwrite the default certificate settings, again editing the file /var/efw/hotspot/settings and add the following variables:

HOTSPOT_CERT=/<CUSTOM_PATH>/hotspot.example.com-cert.pem
HOTSPOT_KEY=/<CUSTOM_PATH>/hotspot.example.com-key.pem
HOTSPOT_CHAIN=/<CUSTOM_PATH>/hotspot.example.com-cabundle.pem

Remember to replace <CUSTOM_PATH> with the full path to the three certificates.

Finally, if an SSL key chain file is not needed, an empty value can be assigned to the last variable of the above configuration, like:

HOTSPOT_CHAIN=

Meaning of variables.

This is a complete reference for the variables that can be used when customising the Hotspot’s portal templates and portal strings. They prove useful to compose messages tailored to each user: Whenever one of these variables appears in a template, it will be replaced by the corresponding value defined for that account. The variables are grouped together in three tables: Table 1 contains variables that can be used in all portal tempales, Table 2 contains variables that can be used in the Print account template only, and Table 3 contains variable used in the portal strings.

Table 1: Variables for all Portal Templates.

Variable	Replaced by
$title	The title of the account holder
$firstname	The first name of the account holder
$lastname	The last name of the account holder
$username	The username of the account
$password	The password of the account
$rate_name	The name of the Hotspot ticket rate
$amount	The amount of traffic or time available
$price	The cost of the ticket
$currency	The currency in which the ticket was paid.
$txn_id	The ID of the transaction.

The variables in the next table will be replaced in the printed account information by the values supplied in the corresponding fields of the account editor.

Table 2: Variables for the Account Print Portal Template.

Variable	Replaced by
$language	The language of the user
$birth_city	The city or town of the user’r birth
$birth_date	The date of the user’s birth.
$document_type	The document that identifies the user
$document_party
$document_id	The ID of the document
$street	The street in which the user lives
$country	The country the user lives in
$city	The city or town where the user lives
$zip	The ZIP code of the user’s city
$description	The account’s description
$static_ip
$external_id
$phonenumber	The phonenumber supplied by the user
$areacode
$email	The e-mail of the user

Variables for the Portal Strings.

Variable	Replaced by [string #]
%(recovery_freq)s	How frequently can a new password can be recovered [4]
%(phonenumber)s	The user’s phone number [9 42]
%(transaction_id)s	The transaction ID [9 11 28 31 37 42 44 105 121]
%(email)s	The user’s e-mail address [11 44 121]
%(grant_ticket_duration)s	The minutes of the free Internet access [44, 121]
%(seconds)s	The number of seconds an user has to wait [55 113]
%(home)s	The link to the Hotspot’s home page. [107]

Only a few of the portal strings (14 on 123) contain variables. For those 14 strings, it is required that every variable contained in the original string (e.g., string #4 You are limited to one request every %(recovery_freq)s.) be contained also in the translated string.

The strings that contain some variables (and which) are the following:

4 %(recovery_freq)s

9, 42 %(phonenumber)s and %(transaction_id)s

11 %(email)s and %(transaction_id)s

28, 31, 37, 105, %(transaction_id)s

44, 121 %(grant_ticket_duration)s, %(email)s, and %(transaction_id)s

55, 113 %(seconds)s

107 %(home)s

Settings ¶

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