I will keep this upto date with the comments I have on the system. I will be implementing this in a live internet cafe / CBD environment this week (hopefully).

Some of the comments are things that I started to implement in my custom system, which I have just binned ;)

My ultimate aim was to have a single system that would allow multiple seperate hotspots to be 'joined' to create a megaspot where a user can go anywhere, where a hotspot operates and login. Although I will be providing all the hotspots each one will be run by a different group of people. Hence the complicated admin accounts.

Billing would work like this:

1. Customer walks into company A.
2. Company A takes $6.00 from customer
3. Company A sets up user account or gives user a 'batch' account
4. User starts, stops whatever.. can use it in any part of the megaspot until time runs out.
5. User goes to company B to topup account. ie $6.00
etc etc

At the end of the month, I print invoices based on where the customers purchased time, so I would bill company A - $3.00 and company B $3.00 for that user (My Cut). They would then keep the rest

-- Interface

1. Better contrast between background and text for the GUI, on my laptop its difficult to read.

2. +13 option for GMT as we have daylight saving over here....

-- General Comments/Questions

1. What do the different Permissions give to a user? ok found that one, looks like I could do with an option to allow admins to just add users...

2. Does the system log which Admin user added the hotspot user? As this will be essential for on-billing.

-- Account Management

1. I would like to be able to specify a location for each admin user.

2. Can I set an expiry date on a profile to be 12 months from today. ie no matter when account is created it expires in 12 months.

3. Ability to add different hourly pricing so I can do the following:

$6.00/hour 1 hour Standard access - 128kbps/64kbps
$8.00/hour 1 hour Premium access - 256kbps/128kbps

4. I think I'm confused about PrePaid time... if i say someone has two hours prepaid, when they first logon the counter starts and even if they log off it doesnt stop??? so once its been started its done finished gone....

5. As this is in a cafe environment I would like to be able to add 20/40 minute purchase options.

-- Billing

1. If location gets added, then I would like to be able to bill all time added to accounts from that location.

-- Bugs

1. Added Batch of 5 users with prefix 1hrPP_ , Users added ok. Selected 5 the users from the 'Users' page, clicked print. PDF downloaded and opened in Acrobat, but the only data shown was '1hrPP' it missed the password and rest of the username.

-- Technical

1. How would this system work/what would I need to do, to put the hotspot machine on a private network behind a firewall. I'm guessing just forward the radius ports through the firewall...

Better contrast between background and text for the GUI, on my laptop its difficult to read.

difficult to make it nice on all screens, but i will try

+13 option for GMT as we have daylight saving over here....

not needed. set it to +12 and daylight saving will be set automatically

edgars will answer the rest

Better contrast between background and text for the GUI, on my laptop its difficult to read.

difficult to make it nice on all screens, but i will try

Specifically the top navigation, the text is difficult to read.

+13 option for GMT as we have daylight saving over here....

not needed. set it to +12 and daylight saving will be set automatically

edgars will answer the rest

cool thanks. BTW I added some more to the first post :)

Also it is very good, better than what I did, although mine had a different angle on the problem.

What do the different Permissions give to a user? ok found that one, looks like I could do with an option to allow admins to just add users...

- Read-Only -- possibility to see all the account information, import logs, reports to PDF, but without permissions to add, change or remove somthing on the account.
- Read,Write -- possibilty to read, add new hosts (or users, hour costs, profiles), change their information. But without remove and create own sub-users permissions
- Full -- full permission with possibility to create own sub-users

Does the system log which Admin user added the hotspot user? As this will be essential for on-billing.

yes, it does. The only think you should mention that you can't see what user are added by yourself (as MASTER admin). In other cases press on the ViewLogs button in the Accoutn Info tab.

I would like to be able to specify a location for each admin user.

i think it could be added.

Can I set an expiry date on a profile to be 12 months from today. ie no matter when account is created it expires in 12 months.

do you want that expires username (possible by setting Validity Till parameter) or you want that after, for example, 12 months users, who have some specific profile set for them, will become 'None' as Profile value?

Ability to add different hourly pricing so I can do the following:

$6.00/hour 1 hour Standard access - 128kbps/64kbps
$8.00/hour 1 hour Premium access - 256kbps/128kbps

not possible yet. But we can think about adding such a feture.

I think I'm confused about PrePaid time... if i say someone has two hours prepaid, when they first logon the counter starts and even if they log off it doesnt stop??? so once its been started its done finished gone....

yes, it the way how Prepaid Time is supposed to work. If you want to give a online time for your customers, use Total Uptime parameter.

As this is in a cafe environment I would like to be able to add 20/40 minute purchase options.

yes, it's already planned to add also minutes to Hour Cost (and Extend Cost) tables.

If location gets added, then I would like to be able to bill all time added to accounts from that location.

with 'location' you mean host? Please, explain a little bit further. Didn't get you completely.

Added Batch of 5 users with prefix 1hrPP_ , Users added ok. Selected 5 the users from the 'Users' page, clicked print. PDF downloaded and opened in Acrobat, but the only data shown was '1hrPP' it missed the password and rest of the username.

Just checked, works ok for me. Maybe you didn't look at other pages (each user login information per page).

How would this system work/what would I need to do, to put the hotspot machine on a private network behind a firewall. I'm guessing just forward the radius ports through the firewall...

i suggest you to give that HotSpot router a real (wide routable) IP then there will be no problems. -Edgars

do you want that expires username (possible by setting Validity Till parameter) or you want that after, for example, 12 months users, who have some specific profile set for them, will become 'None' as Profile value?

Yes I could set that parameter, but I'm looking to make it easy for the dumb guy/girl who is creating users. So within the profile having an expiry date for the account, so any accounts created using that profile will autmatically get disabled after x months. From my point of view, I need a system that an ape could use. At the moment I can see too many places where they could screw up.

If location gets added, then I would like to be able to bill all time added to accounts from that location.

with 'location' you mean host? Please, explain a little bit further. Didn't get you completely.

Location = Physical Location. This will then allow me to have a town wide hotspot, with different locations selling access. I can then track who is selling what and bill them accordingly.

Added Batch of 5 users with prefix 1hrPP_ , Users added ok. Selected 5 the users from the 'Users' page, clicked print. PDF downloaded and opened in Acrobat, but the only data shown was '1hrPP' it missed the password and rest of the username.

Just checked, works ok for me. Maybe you didn't look at other pages (each user login information per page).

Saw the multiple pages, but didnt show anything. Will try again tonight.

How would this system work/what would I need to do, to put the hotspot machine on a private network behind a firewall. I'm guessing just forward the radius ports through the firewall...

i suggest you to give that HotSpot router a real (wide routable) IP then there will be no problems. -Edgars

ok

Yes I could set that parameter, but I'm looking to make it easy for the dumb guy/girl who is creating users. So within the profile having an expiry date for the account, so any accounts created using that profile will autmatically get disabled after x months. From my point of view, I need a system that an ape could use. At the moment I can see too many places where they could screw up.

but you can already do that. Go to Profile tab, add one profile specifying Validity-Till (date you want the user, this profile is given to, gets disabled) and other values you want this profile to have. When adding user specify this profile and that's it.

Location = Physical Location. This will then allow me to have a town wide hotspot, with different locations selling access. I can then track who is selling what and bill them accordingly.

would it be enough with a list of users added by specific sub-user (subbranche)?

Edgars

Yes I could set that parameter, but I'm looking to make it easy for the dumb guy/girl who is creating users. So within the profile having an expiry date for the account, so any accounts created using that profile will autmatically get disabled after x months. From my point of view, I need a system that an ape could use. At the moment I can see too many places where they could screw up.

but you can already do that. Go to Profile tab, add one profile specifying Validity-Till (date you want the user, this profile is given to, gets disabled) and other values you want this profile to have. When adding user specify this profile and that's it.

But from what I could see its not a rolling date. ie if I set it as 3/12/2005, it wont automatically be 4/12/2005 tommorow.

Location = Physical Location. This will then allow me to have a town wide hotspot, with different locations selling access. I can then track who is selling what and bill them accordingly.

would it be enough with a list of users added by specific sub-user (subbranche)?

Edgars

Yes that would be fine :D

PS: Hope to go live with this tommorow/saturday.

But from what I could see its not a rolling date. ie if I set it as 3/12/2005, it wont automatically be 4/12/2005 tommorow.

wait. If you set 3/12/2005 it means that this username will be disabled at the 3rd of December 23:59:59 o'clock if the user is online, otherwise his username will be locked in one minute i.i 00:00 - 00:01

Yes that would be fine :D

PS: Hope to go live with this tommorow/saturday.

will see how we'll go with this:)

Edgars

Evening....

Have been trying to get the 'Print Users' to work, but for some reason from here in Both IE and Firefox and on two different PC's it doesn't work. All I get is the prefix part of the username.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Bill

can you describe step-by-step what are you doing? Works here by us on random browsers and PCs:)

Edgars

Click on the Users Panel,
tick the checkboxes for the top 5 users,
click print users
then save the pdf to disk
open pdf into acrobat

Sorry it took so long to reply, have been really busy this week. I just tried again and the same thing happens.

What version of acrobat are you using? Is it the english version?

TIA,

Bill

it's english 5.0.5 version. Just tested also on 4.0 version. No problems.

Have you any other problems or uncertanties with HS Manager?

Edgars

I also tested with Acrobat 6 on my computer, no problems whatsoever.

it's english 5.0.5 version. Just tested also on 4.0 version. No problems.

Have you any other problems or uncertanties with HS Manager?

Edgars

No problems so far, not live with it yet :( as the owner of the building objected to our antenna at the last minute, so am currently working on another option. But will be live soon.....

Have finally got the hotspot installed, but for some reason I get 'invalid profile name' when I try to add a profile with the names of:

1/2hr - Prepay
0.5hr - Prepay
30min prepay


none of the above work.

Although from the pc I'm trying it on, the printing now works :) Any guidelines for profile names?

thx

bill

since yesterday only letters and digits are allowed to enter inthe Profile name field. It's for security reasons.

Edgars

edzix - can't you make something smarter for security? also `30min prepay` contains only letters and digits, so why doesn't it work?

`30min prepay`

does contain a space, which is not a letter nor a digit...

wow, that's really inconvenient. we'll improve it

spaces and underscores are allowed now.

Edgars

Wonderful :) thanks

One more thing ;) Would it be possible to export the users details to a text file? for importing into a database/excel whatever, so we can print nice little cards?

have you tried PrintTicket feature. It exports user's lofin parameters and the cost of the service to the PDF file.
You can also use BackupData button to send all your configuration to your e-mail. It will be stored in the *.xls file, so you will be able to copy only Username and Password if it is an aim. This could be done under Info tab.

Edgars

I must be going blind... wheres the print ticket feature?

Thanks,

Bill

PS: on export/backup I get the following error in firefox:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_col_count() in /var/www/radius/excel.php on line 50

PrintUsers button is placed under Users tab. Select users you want to export to PDF and click the button. It's available also when you are adding a batch of users (AddBatch-->ViewBatch-->PrintUsers).

That error will be fixed. Thank's for the report!

Edgars

Edgars,

Thanks for that.

I think we are crossing wires.... the print users option is great. But what I was looking for is an option to allow me to print say 8 users details per page. or to export the details to a file. In fact a table in html would be fine as I could copy and paste it into an excel file for credit card size cards.

I've tried playing in Acrobat to reduce to print size to say A5 but it won't let me. Unless of course I get a more expensive printer that will do scaling.

Thanks,

Bill

Bill,

this option is already available if you are using AddBatch and the table with usernames and passwords appears when clicking on ViewBatch button.
Have you tried to get login parameters from the *.xls file? Th bug you reported is already fixed, so, maybe try again.

Edgars

Now that works ;) thats exactly what I need.... will let you know when I think of something else.

Have a good weekend.

Bill