WebJunction

Does anyone know how to create a "splash" page that would appear when a patron uses a library's wifi? You know, like what comes up when you use a hotel's wireless or in the airport? I have a director that would like her patrons to know that they are using wireless courtesy of her library but I don't know how this is done.
Linda Gens

Here are some suggestions from the folks on the LibWireless List:

It would depend on the Access Point. I have used ZoneCD to redirect to our wifi policy on our website and am currently using a Cisco WLC that first has users accept a basic policy (very little text space to write in) and then redirects users to our webpage.



Anna Turner

Tulsa City-County Library
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Our access points allow us to define the first page a customer gets when connecting. We give them a 'brought to you by....' page.

Sean @ Newport Beach
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We don't manage the service, but the university authenticates wireless with a splash page, which is followed by a login page (as access is limited to authenticated faculty, staff, and students). After that their computer is checked for current patches and virus updates, and won't let them on until those are installed, if needed. The software is Perfigo, now owned by Cisco. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/22/cisco_perfigo/ is a story from a couple years ago, and http://www.williamwoods.edu/Info.asp?2151 tells about one school's implementation. The version we use does not require installation of anything on the user's laptop.

I'm sure there are many other ways of doing the same type of thing.

dan
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This functionality, often referred to as “captive portal”, is widely available via higher end network hardware, e.g. the Cisco WLC line of devices in the $5,000 to $10,000 range (perhaps a bit less, I haven’t looked exhaustively).

It is also available at no or low cost if implemented on a gateway PC (usually Linux, but a few Windows approaches are available). ZoneCD is an example, which has the added attraction that one need not actually do a hard disk install to enable this functionality. It runs from the bootable CD itself.

There are a couple lower-end ($300-500) “appliance” devices that have this functionality built in:

ValuePoint: http://www.valuepointnet.com/products/controllers/index.html
D-Link DSA-3100


The latter, however, appears to have been discontinued by D-Link.

Finally, for a while, there were a number of promising efforts underway to develop open source firmware for the ubiquitous LinkSys WRT-54G wireless access points that would offer captive portal and other hotspot-specific capabilities: Sveasoft has been promising Talisman: Hotspot for 18 months. Meanwhile, LinkSys has changed the OS and hardware underpinnings of its newer wireless APs and even the latest versions of the WRT-54G so that some of the open source stuff won’t work in any case.

My personal preference in this area would be for a nice, compact appliance approach. Set it and forget it. However, absent such a solution, one must either invest in some local gateway hacking – not hard but not trivially easy either – or spend more money than one would like.

--

Karl Beiser
Executive Director
Maine Info Net
http://www.maine.gov/infonet

Message was edited by:
bill_drew

In our Library, the wireless service is provided by our local cable company - it's their access point, not ours. If the splash page is a function of the router, then we should be able to negotiate with them and get our Terms of Use displayed? Because this service was gifted to us, I'm fuzzy on the details of how it all works.

Sharon Moreland
Tonganoxie Public Library