Internet Cafe - management software?

I recently spent some time in Germany and was very impressed with the
small internet cafes where one could simply walk in off the street and
pay for wireless access without having an account with a wireless ISP.
The staff simply allocated me an access code which allowed access to
web and email servies on an unencrypted wireless lan for a timed
period. Does anyone know where I can find out more information about
how to configure such system? Is the management software freely
available?

Regards.

Patrick.

One such option is: http://www.dnsredirector.com

See some others at: http://www.dnsredirector.com/compare.asp

My suggestion is you find a way to make it free to the end-user. I'll
never pay for "temporary" internet access when I'm already paying
monthly at home, or monthly on my cell. Of course, I have self
control, many other people can't seem to be without the net.


Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> I recently spent some time in Germany and was very impressed with the
> small internet cafes where one could simply walk in off the street and
> pay for wireless access without having an account with a wireless ISP.
> The staff simply allocated me an access code which allowed access to
> web and email servies on an unencrypted wireless lan for a timed
> period. Does anyone know where I can find out more information about
> how to configure such system? Is the management software freely
> available?
>
> Regards.
>
> Patrick.

"Patrick Finnegan" <finnegan.patrick@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1159875805.546375.240510@k70g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
>I recently spent some time in Germany and was very impressed with the
> small internet cafes where one could simply walk in off the street and
> pay for wireless access without having an account with a wireless ISP.
> The staff simply allocated me an access code which allowed access to
> web and email servies on an unencrypted wireless lan for a timed
> period. Does anyone know where I can find out more information about
> how to configure such system? Is the management software freely
> available?
>
> Regards.
>
> Patrick.

Hi,

The Google keyword you are looking for is "captive portal".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal

Its approached either by a hardware or software solution.

A hardware solution would be "ready-made boxes", specifically just for
managment of a wireless hotspot. They can be quite expensive and are mainly
just used for commercial purpose. (I.e., having users pay for wireless
time.) They usually integrate with some sort of purchasing service that
users use to buy time...

A software solution is just that -- a set of programs to do the same thing
as a hardware box. There are a number of "ready-made software environments"
for commercial use. Most of the commercial software stuff runs on Windows,
is pre-config'd as much as possible and already glossed, etc. They usually
tie in with some purchasing service, which the distributor hedges a fraction
of each transaction from.

Free captive portals? Of course! Most free captive portals are based off
GNU/Linux.. I run one called "ZoneCD" to share my internet pipe. I do it
simply because I like to share. "ZoneCD" can run off an older computer,
with two NIC's, without even using a HDD. It runs off the CD.

Here is a diagram of the typical setup of a CP:
http://www.publicip.net/zonecd/how.php

Have fun!

Eric <none@nospam.nnn> wrote:
> The Google keyword you are looking for is "captive portal".

....

> Here is a diagram of the typical setup of a CP:
> http://www.publicip.net/zonecd/how.php

In addition to offering WiFi access, some of the shops have PCs that you
can use to surf the web, handy if you aren't lugging your laptop with you
on a bicycle tour of Mongolia.

Those PCs are known to be rife with viruses and keysnoopers, so that you
can't even log in to your own https email account without surrendering your
passwords to whoever is behind the snooper.


A friend just opened a hotspot. It's simpler than that, just turned on a
WAP for customers to use for free. The only control is that it is turned
off at night. I'd like to embellish the setup.

I figured I'd go with a zonecd for the WiFi access. (I want to squeeze
that onto a P2 with 96MB that runs Linux just fine in normal life, but the
zonecd pages say it needs 128MB.)


I'd also like to offer a simple Linux-Mozilla workstation. People could
surf, and at the end of each session, caches and cookies and bookmarks
would be cleared. Maybe most of this would be on a CDROM or a write
protected drive, or something like that.

I suppose this might be called a kiosk, but I didn't know where to start
looking without getting a zillion pages. This thread inspired me to search
for kiosk on the zonecd forum. (doh.)

http://www.kioskcd.com/ looks like what I want. I don't care if it's
fully featured. I only want to supply a web browser. This might even make
use of an old box in the garage that has been unloved for a while.

http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html looks interesting, but for a larger
environment with multiple thin clients.

Is there Linux that will run on a 486?
If not, maybe some of the old SPARC machines that I have gathering dust?

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

JPElectron wrote:
> See some others at: http://www.dnsredirector.com/compare.asp
>
> My suggestion is you find a way to make it free to the end-user. I'll
> never pay for "temporary" internet access when I'm already paying
> monthly at home, or monthly on my cell. Of course, I have self
> control, many other people can't seem to be without the net.
>
>

Yeah but...............

I travelled to Germany for the World Cup where I don't have a roaming
account or email enabled cell phone. I configured the versa mail
application on my Palm Pilot Tungsten C to connect to my pop3 email
account and enabled wireless. I bought a plug adapter with a USB socket
before I left so I had no problem charging it up. The Tungsten worked
flawlessly. It was the first time I used the Tungsten C wireless
functionality and I was very impressed. It's great for email. Web
browsing is problematic unless you stick to browsing sites providing
PDA specific content.

JPElectron wrote:
> One such option is: http://www.dnsredirector.com
>
> See some others at: http://www.dnsredirector.com/compare.asp
>
> My suggestion is you find a way to make it free to the end-user. I'll
> never pay for "temporary" internet access when I'm already paying
> monthly at home, or monthly on my cell. Of course, I have self
> control, many other people can't seem to be without the net.
>
>

Why does it need to be free? They are providing a service.

And what does self control have to do with it? You are on the road and
out of town or on business and you need Internet access what are you
supposed to do? This is like saying "I have been out of town for three
days but I won't buy food because I have some at home that I previously
purchased".