Frequently Asked Questions:

• What is ControlAP?
  • ControlAP is a software access point controller. It allows you to control your access point so that it functions as a "hotspot". It functions identically to an Internet connection sharing application (e.g. WinGate or Microsoft's ICS) allowing a PC to share a single internet connection to a network of computers connected to that PC, via a Ethernet LAN or a wireless adapter (which can be a dedicated hardware 802.11 Access Point or a 802.11 wireless client adapter). ControlAP also has optional portal features such as a welcome page, access control and detailed logging. ControlAP also features a low memory footprint allowing it to a function as a Mobile AP when used in PDAs.
    
    
• How can I customize the captive portal page (the welcome page)?
  • You can customize the header, the logo and the message for the welcome page via Settings  If you wish to write your own welcome.html page and additionally a home page simply edit or add pages to the /web folder where you installed ControlAP or use the web based administrator. See Settings under ControlAP Help for more information.
    
    
• How can I use my WiFi (802.11) client card as an Access Point?
  • One can use a standard client card to share the Internet with other clients (to act as the server) by setting the card to ad-hoc mode. Follow the directions of your card's (PC card or USB adapter) manufacturer to set a unique SSID and channel (preferably an unused channel in your area). Most clients will be able to automatically detect your card (in Ad Hoc mode) just as easily as detecting other standard Access Points (in infrastructure mode). Additionally on Linux platforms you can change some client cards into a true infrastructure Access Point by using the hostAP software and firmware. On the Mac OS X, you can set your wireless card to be a true AP by going to Sharing under system preferences and enabling the Airport options.
    
    
• What is a Mobile AP?
  • With ControlAP, you can create an WiFi hotspot anywhere by running ControlAP on your laptop or PDA equipped with a 802.11 card and connecting to the internet via a wireless phone with high speed data capabilities. Now you can share the internet at any location.  Hold meetings in the park or at the beach. Share the internet on the bus or van.
    
    
• Can ControlAP extend (repeat) the range of another AP?
  • Yes you can. By using two wireless cards on your laptop for example, you can first connect to a separate AP on one card and then setup ControlAP to run on the laptop using the second card as your "hotspot". To minimize interference between the cards use separate 802.11 channels.
    
    
• Can ControlAP run on other PDAs besides the Zaurus?
  • Yes, the Zaurus 5000/5500 series PDA is similar to the IPaq series (except that it runs Linux instead of PocketPC). Since this program uses Java, this program should also be able to run on IPaqs as well as Palm PDAs equipped with a Java runtime environment. Note that memory may be an issue with older Palm PDAs. To use it on Palm PDAs, use the PockePC download and follow the directions on how to run a Java application with the Java environment that you will use on the PDA The Personal Java runtime environment is recommended over J2ME. Support for Palm and additional PDAs will be available in future versions.
    
    
• How can I filter specific users by MAC address?
  • Currently ControlAP allows you to do this by manually creating lists to either deny access (deny.txt) or allow only specific MAC addresses (allow.txt ). Mac addresses can be delimited with any character and must be listed in hexadecimal format with no spaces or dashes between digits. The allow.txt file takes precedence over deny.txt. Simply place the file(s) in the ControlAP folder. Alternately you can also set this type of filtering with your Access Point Hardware, see the manufacture's documentation. You can also filter web content in a similar manner. See Help from the ControlAP menu for more information.
    
    
• What is DHCP and why do I need to disable it on my AP?
  • ControlAP contains a DHCP server. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is the mechanism by which IP addresses are assigned to clients. IP addresses are required by clients to communicate over the network and the internet. Since ControlAP controls DHCP, all APs connected to it must disabled their DHCP servers.
    
    
• Does ControlAP support NAT (Network Address Translation)?
  • Yes, ControlAP supports NAT on all OS platforms.  NAT (Network Address Translation) is used to translate and route internet address and port destinations. It may be required for certain applications, e.g. VPN (Virtual Private Networks). ControlAP also works without NAT by automatically proxying common ports such as web, email, ssh (secure shell) with the option to add additional ports. Thus you can secure ports and control bandwidth using ControlAP without using NAT.  NAT support is not available on certain PDAs such as PocketPC and Palm.
    
    ControlAP supports NAT using the underlying OS's support for NAT (or third party implementations). See the section under Online Help that describes how to enable NAT for your OS. After enabling NAT support for the OS, enable it for ControlAP under ControlAP's Advanced Settings.
    
    
• Can I control turning off access during night hours?
  
  • Yes, there is a scheduler that will control hours of operation.
    
    
• Can you track every site that each client visits?
  • Yes, all URLs (web site locations) visited by each client can be logged (logging is off by default). However, this information cannot necessarily be tracked to an individual user. Currently, log data is captured into two files: a DHCP log and a web log. The DHCP log contains all DHCP traffic consisting of requests for IP addresses with each entry containing the clients MAC addresses. The web log contains all web traffic with each entry containing client IP addresses in a format following the standard web server log, This allows one to use third party web log tools to analyze the data. One could correlate both log files to trace usage to MAC addresses but ControlAP does not provide this. And even if it did, a MAC address alone does not provide any personally identifiable information (other than perhaps the manufacturer of the wireless card) thus preserving the privacy of your users. Also, MAC addresses can be forged.  Note: http headers (which include cookies) are not logged, only URLs are and only in proxy mode (not NAT mode) under Windows and Mac OSX and when web monitor is enabled on Linux. This may also be resource intensive so it is not recommended.
    
    
• How many simultaneous clients can ControlAP support?
  • The exact number depends on available bandwidth and hardware specifications on the host PC as well as the AP hardware used. A client based ad hoc network for example is much less capable than a standard infrastructure AP. Due to the DHCP scope as used in ControlAP, the theoretical maximum would correspond to the IP range. Which when using the subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 excluding addresses .0, .255 and .1 (for the server itself) would make the answer 253 but this is adjustable under Settings. By default the range selected is the gateway address + 1 to .200 because some Access Points (e.g. Linksys) use .251 . Note that with ControlAP Pro you can manage multiple hotspots (each with the above limit).
    
    
• What ports do I need to open if I use a firewall on my Hotspot?
  Open up 80tcp (http) , 53udp (dns) and 67udp (dhcp) and (443) for SSL if using ControlAP Plus or Pro. If you use ZoneAlarm, simply allow the Java executable (wjview.exe or javaw.exe) to run as a server. Not allowing certain high bandwidth ports (like the mp3 file sharing ports) will  allow you to control  bandwidth.  However, If you are using NAT under Windows, use port filters (under TCP/IP advanced options) instead of ZoneAlarm or ICF (Microsoft's Firewall) to protect your hotspot.
  
  Using an external dedicated hardware based firewall (not the ones built into home grade access points) is highly recommended. Note: ZoneAlarm will not fucntion with NAT. McAfee's product line also has problems with NAT and DNS and is currently not recommended until a workaround is found. Most third parties software firewalls, spam filters, email filters are designe dto protect from the internet and not a wireless lan (not both adapters), the best security from the wireless users is the port filtering described above. The best security form the internet is use an external router and not connect directly. If you need to access your host PC remotely use port redirection provided by the router.
  
  For further assistance please email support.
  
  
• Why when I use NAT with Windows OS can I no longer monitor web traffic?
  
  • It's because web traffic is no longer redirected through the ControlAP Monitor. To achieve this, it is recommended to use an external firewall where you can add a filter or rule to redirect all http traffic to the gateway address. Or use third party NAT software that provides this capability.
    
    
• How secure is ControlAP?
  
  • ControlAP is more secure than other access controllers because it controls IP assigment (DHCP) as well as DNS and monitors clients based on both IP and MAC addresses. To completely secure access to your local network it is recommended to close all ports to you host PC except those used by ControlAP (see ports question).
    
    
• My handheld device does not have Java where can I get it?
  
  • Here's a list of Java Virtual Machines you can use. Personal Java specification is the type you are looking for:
       
  http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/fittond/ppcjava.html
  
  
• Can I provide cached web pages should my internet connection go down?
  
• Yes, there is a local cache option where you can provide saved copies of web sites (see Help for more information). You can also use third party caching software in conjunction with ControlAP.
  
  
• Can I connect more than one AP to cover a wide area?
  
  • Yes, simply use a hub to connect 2 or more APs to the same ethernet connection. Make sure that they are in the same subnet address range. For example 192.168.1.252, 192.168.1.253, 192.168.1.254 are 3 APs connected to a hub that connects to the ControlAP PC gateway at 192.168..1.1 thus allowing  up to 250 users across all 3 APs (using the DHCP range of 192.168.1.2 - 251).  In addtion to covering a larger area, most home grade APs may  not be able to handle such a large number of simultaneous users so you may find yourself requiring several access points to handle such a volume.
    
    
• Can I run ControlAP in an embedded device?
  • Yes. Contact support for details for Soekris or equivalent boards. The Linksys WRT54G is also supported - download the free uploader tool from the free Downloads section for more information.
    
    
• Can receive logging data renotely?
  
  • Yes, there is an option to use syslog by adding the syslog=[hostname] to the configuration file.
    
    
• How can I demo the product's features if I have no network connections?
  • Set your browser's proxy settings for web (port 80) to point to localhost or 127.0.0.1. And check the Demo checkbox under advanced settings in the Web Administrator. This will emulate a user connected to your hotspot locally without needing any network connections.
    
    
• What are the different ControlAP editions and how much do they cost?
  • For a feature matrix please see:  http://controlap.com/features.htm (or click on Features from main page)
    
    For a quick summary see:  http://controlap.com/about.htm (or click About from main page)
    
    To purchase:  http://controlap.com/purchase.jsp (or click Purchase from main page)
    
    
• Can I generate access code tickets and accept credit cards?
  • Yes, with ControlAP Pro, you can determine your own pricing and either print access codes or accept credit cards. With Standard you can also create user accounts with time limits (web based utility to generate access codes forthcoming for the Standard Edition).
    
    
• I'm having trouble with ControlAP on Windows....?
  • First make sure you have connectivity on the host box running ControlAP. Make sure the adapters listed in Settings are correct, make sure that you initially disable all firewalls and disable Internet Connection Sharing.  Make sure that the Routing and Remote Access service is enabled and running.  If you continually stop and start ControlAP, the state of NAT may not be reset properly and you may have to reboot.  Close the application properly, if for any reason you do not, the processes may become stranded, in which case kill the processes: controlap.exe and javaw.exe
    
    
    
• Please report any documentation bugs or new questions for the FAQ at


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