We have need of a simple portal screen server for our WISP customers.
It does not need to take usernames or passwords, it only needs to present a web page at times of our
choice providing information and links to the end customer, and provide links to quit and go back to normal
traffic. There are about 200 customers involved and maybe 100 to 300 megs of traffic.
Long ago I built a portal server for hotspots down town out of perl. All our traffic went through the
portal server and there was a DNAT global redirect firewall rule for ports 80 and 443, that redirected all outgoing
traffic to a web page on the server. The web page asked for username and password, and took money and
credit cards etc, and then enabled the user by putting another filrewall rule in front of the DNAT redirect
allowing their traffic to pass. Thus there was an accept rule for every enabled customer. The whole system was reset
every night at 3am.
I have wracked my brains for a simpler method to deal with many more customers at a time, the idea of 100’s of
enabling rules in the way of everyone’s traffic seems cumbersome. Am I missing something obvious?
I also know that the mikrotik has its own hotspot system, is there any recommendation that I should use that built in system
rather than my own portal server stripped down from the original one?
Thanks in advance,
Homer W. Smith
CEO Lightlink Internet