WiFiDog Captive Portal
Encyclopedia
WiFiDog is an open source
embeddable captive portal
solution used to build wireless hotspots.
WiFiDog consists of two components: the gateway and the authentication server. WiFiDog was created and conceived of by the technical team of Île Sans Fil
.
with no dependencies beyond the Linux kernel
. This structure enables it to be embedded in devices such as the Wrt54g
router running OpenWrt
, FreeWRT or DD-WRT
or most PCs running Linux
. Linux Journal reports that a working gateway install can be packaged in less than 15Kb on an i386 platform.
is a PHP
and PostgreSQL
server based solution written to authenticate clients in a captive portal
environment. WiFiDog Auth provides portal specific content management, allows users to create wireless internet access accounts using email access, provides gateway uptime statistics and connection specific and user log statistics.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
embeddable captive portal
Captive portal
The captive portal technique forces an HTTP client on a network to see a special web page before using the Internet normally. A captive portal turns a Web browser into an authentication device. This is done by intercepting all packets, regardless of address or port, until the user opens a browser...
solution used to build wireless hotspots.
WiFiDog consists of two components: the gateway and the authentication server. WiFiDog was created and conceived of by the technical team of Île Sans Fil
Île Sans Fil
Île Sans Fil , or ISF, is a non-profit community wireless network that provides free public wireless Internet access to mobile users in public spaces throughout the island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They use open-source software and inexpensive off-the-shelf Wi-Fi hardware to share broadband...
.
Gateway
The WiFiDog gateway is written in CC (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
with no dependencies beyond the Linux kernel
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
. This structure enables it to be embedded in devices such as the Wrt54g
WRT54G
The Linksys WRT54G is a Wi-Fi capable residential gateway from Linksys. The device is capable of sharing Internet connections among several computers via 802.3 Ethernet and 802.11b/g wireless data links.-WRT54G:The original WRT54G was first released in December 2002...
router running OpenWrt
OpenWrt
OpenWrt is a Linux distribution primarily targeted at routing on embedded devices. It comprises a set of about 2000 software packages, installed and uninstalled via the opkg package management system. OpenWrt can be configured using the command-line interface of BusyBox ash, or the web interface...
, FreeWRT or DD-WRT
DD-WRT
DD-WRT is a Linux-based firmware for several wireless routers, most notably the Linksys WRT54G . Like other similar projects, DD-WRT is third-party firmware designed to replace the firmware that ships pre-installed on many commercial routers...
or most PCs running Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
. Linux Journal reports that a working gateway install can be packaged in less than 15Kb on an i386 platform.
Authentication server
The WiFiDog authentication serverAuthentication server
Authentication servers are servers that provide authentication services to users or other systems via networking. Remotely placed users and other servers authenticate to such a server, and receive cryptographic tickets...
is a PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
and PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
server based solution written to authenticate clients in a captive portal
Captive portal
The captive portal technique forces an HTTP client on a network to see a special web page before using the Internet normally. A captive portal turns a Web browser into an authentication device. This is done by intercepting all packets, regardless of address or port, until the user opens a browser...
environment. WiFiDog Auth provides portal specific content management, allows users to create wireless internet access accounts using email access, provides gateway uptime statistics and connection specific and user log statistics.