ControlAP
Pro Hotspot Administrator
Quick Links: ControlAP Pro Main Documentation
Main Menu:
Configuration:
The
Main Menu contains links (buttons) to manage user accounts, price
plans, hotspot customization for both local and remote hotspots and
access code management.
Merchant account
configuration, remote hotspots customization and voip settings are
available under the configuration button (upper left button).
Note: select view image or open image in browser (ctrl or right click) to see actual size screen shots
User Accounts
From the Users List you can view all users and edit or delete specific users.
Adding
a User can be done from this list or the Main Menu. Note that you can
select or change and existing user's price plan (define plans first -
see next section).
.
To view only currently logged in users click on Current Users from
the Main Menu. You can log out a user at any hotspot from the central
server from the current users list which will stop timed charges the
but user may still be logged in at the local hotspot until the user is
removed from the local hotspot via that hotspot's manager or timeout on
it's own.
As
with the Users List, you can add a new plan from either the Main Menu
or the Plans List as well as selecting a plan to edit oe delete. Note
that plans are uniquely identified by a number and you need to enter a
unique unused number when adding more plans. The order displayed
is controlled by the plan list configured under Configration for
specifying different plans lists for the local or remote hotspots.
Price
plan cost is specified by a decimal number only (5.00 or 5.0) for $5.00
and time is by default specified in minutes or you indicate m for
minutes h for hours or d for days, e.g. 4h
First
select Generate Access Codes before you try to either view them or
print them, You can select what Price Plan to use as well as how many
to print.
Keep in mind how many to per page twill
print to generate to specify enough. You can change the print format
from the Configuration menu.
Viewing Access Codes, allows you to edit and delete codes in a similar fasion to managing user accounts.
When
printing codes (depending on size of label or card) you can add a
custom header and specify which codes to print (starting number) Codes
are idientifying by a unique ascending number (not related to the
alpha-numeric codes themselves). You can specify a range to delete
(when viewing codes.).
When
printing, depending on the browser user, you may have to adjust the top
and bottom (and maybe even the left and right) margins.
Current
supported print formats include common label and business card formats
(Avery Label sizes or equivalents). 2x5, 3x10, 3x15 and 4x20 By default
3x15 is selected but you can change this from the Configuration menu
(next section).
Above illustrates a part of a 3x15 page (not actual size).
Audit Trail
Records
of each login or logoutor purchase is saved. Note: these are cumalative
so to delete or backup see database management advanced topics in main
documentation. Logged In values mean 0=logged out 1=logged in
2=renewing 3=pending merchant approval. Note that if the merchant takes
too long to approve a transaction (e.g. slow latency with some
satellite modems) users may not be able to immediately access web
(browser timesout) until they approval is received by ControlAP Pro. If
you must, you can igmore pending approval notifications by adding
ignorepending=true to the configuration file, config.txt.
Voip calls records are not kept here but in a
separate database table, CDR (Call Detail Records) and are kept in a
standard format and are accessible using CDR reporting tools. Ability to view CDRs is forthcoming in a future update.
Configuration
You
can customize the login pages for the local hotspot here as well as
specify the domain name runninf ControlAP Pro. Price Plans are comma
delimited.
Merchant account settings are entered here (see main documentation for more info)
You
can enable plans (minute and hour based plans only) to be rollover
plans (meaning you can logout and then log back in later to use
remaining time) Otherwise the default is to strictly be time based
(clock start at login time and continues even if user logs off or
disconnects). See access codes section above for info on print
options.
Under Additional Options, you have remote hotspots
(managing multiple remote hotspots each running ControlAP Plus) as well
as Voip settings for integration with Asterisk PBX (the popular open
source software PBX) for printing or creating and
controlling calling cards.
Remote Hotspots
You
can customize the login pages for remote hotspots connecting to this
central authentication server. Each remote hotspot is uniquely
identified with a 5 digit numeric number.
As with Users and Price Plans, you can add, edit and delete hotspot entries.
IP
refers to the local gateway IP address at that hotspot location and
percentage is just for your reference for revenue sharing at each
location (no revenue accounting per hotspot is currently trackes). For
domain name, please enter the domain for the ControlAP Pro machine at
this time. As you may surmise, you can customize a diferent subset of
price plans for each remote hotspot.
For more info on customizing login pages please refer to main documentation (see link at top).
VOIP Settings (Phone Calling Cards with ControlAP Pro and Asterisk)
With
a software based PBX (Asterisk) and a wholesale VOIP service provider
(business to business providers that provide phone calls for as little
as 1.3 cents for domestic calls) you can resell voice phone calls to
your customers.
If you are new to VOIP please see http://voip-info.org for more information.
Prerequisites:
1) Asterisk, free PBX (Private Branch eXchange) software
Linux: http://asterisk.org
MacOS: http://www.sunrise-tel.com
Windows: http://asteriskwin32.com
2)
A VOIP service provider for outbound calls. VoIPJet is initially
supported out of the box, but you can also use other providers. For a
list: http://voip-info.org/wiki/view/VOIP+Service+Providers+B2B
With
Asterisk you can have any number of providers for both inbound and/or
outbound calls. For example you can set certain exchanges (also
referred to as "patterns") For example, "800" numbers can be provided
from one provider and specific country patterns from another provider
or have more than one provider for each pattern (as a backup provider
should one fail). US domestic calls usually begin with "1" and
international calls with "011".
Installation:
1)
After installing Asterisk (refer to instructions accompanying Asterisk
documentation) Copy the sound files found in the voip/sounds folder to
/var/lib/asterisk/sounds. Windows users should copy to:
c:\cygroot\asterisk\lib\sounds (assuming c:\cygroot is where you
installed asteriskwin32).
2) To install VoIPJet's rates into the database, first download voipjet.csv from http://voipjet.com
into the voip folder before starting ControlAP Pro. VoIPJet provides a free
25 cent test account. Enter your VoIPJet id
number configuration->voip settings->edit trunk ("trunks"
are providers). For other providers, you will need to enter rates
manually at this time. The rates (routes table in database) are astcc
(Asterisk Calling Card) compatible so third party scripts can be used
to import rate data from other providers. For example, search for
astcc_import_routes.pl for importing nuphone.net rates. Or you can edit
voipjet.csv first (delete all rates to import rates again at startup).
3)
You can either leave the rates as they are and provide VOIP calls at
cost, or markup all the rates at once by entering a percentage (see
configuration in hotspot admin). You can also edit the rate for an
individual exchange pattern (e.g. pattern 1 is USA) or delete specific
rates (e.g. only provide domestic calls). To enter more than one trunk
for a specific route/pattern, delimit trunks with ":".
4) To print calling card codes (these are 12 digit numeric codes which
are different from hotspot alpha-numeric access codes), create a price
plan and enter the cost of the plan under Cost, e.g. 5.00 and under
Name, describe the plan, e.g. "$5.00 Calling Card" and under Minutes
enter -1 or leave blank to indicate a VOIP plan. Use the following
link to provide a table of your current VOIP rates to customers:
https://[Controlap Pro]/hotspot/displayrates.jsp
Example
calling card printout screenshot below (not actual size) displays the
default format of 3x15. Content is html based and customizable.
Current
supported print formats include common label and business card formats
(Avery Label sizes or equivalents). 2x5 (standard business card stock),
3x10, 3x15 and 4x20 (suitable for labels to stick on flyers or business
cards). You can select this from the Configuration menu (see above
section).
5) For those new to Asterisk, please refer to the many Asterisk resources available (start with http://voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk)
for configuring the voice menu in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf and for
configuring software phone clients.
You will be adding an
extension to enter the calling card service. Add the following to
the bottom of the [default] section in /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
(Windows users: c:\cygroot\asterisk\etc\extensions.conf)
exten => 77,1,DeadAgi(agi://localhost/controlap.agi)
Please
note the additional configuration required by your provider to complete
calls. For example, for VoIPJet this includes the entries required in
iax.conf (found in same folder as extensions.conf). To test, install
client software such as X-Lite (http://www.counterpath.com) and
configure access in sip.conf (Windows Asterisk users already have some
extensions configured for SIP clients to use).
Usage Notes:
Clients
can connect to your Asterisk gateway via standard IAX or SIP ports
using the IP address of the machine running Asterisk (usually same IP
as your hotspot gateway) and optional username/password for access
depending on clients and configuration.
Dial 77 to access the
automated voice menu with instructions on how to make a calling card
call (you can change this extension in extensions.conf as shown above)
In
addition to or instead of providing instructions to customers on how to
set setup SIP, IAX software or wirelesss phone clients to communicate
with your server (note that you may have to open firewall ports), you
can also provide service with a dedicated physical phone (an analog
phone can be connected to an Asterisk server with a FXS adapter card).
You can also provide outbound calls via an inbound phone number.
Hotspot
user accounts and hotspot access codes are currently separate from VOIP
calling card accounts. So at this time, only pre-paid printable calling
cards are supported automatically (additional options will be available
in upcoming releases). Also, the calling card numbers generated
currently do not expire.
Asterisk
can also be embedded in
Linksys WRT54GL (and equivalent) Access Points (using third party
firmware: OpenWRT) in addition to ControlAP Embedded (Free, Standard
and Plus
Editions only). To host ControlAP Pro on a separate server than
the server or device running Asterisk, edit the extension's agi URL
above from localhost to the ip address of ControlAP Pro. For more
information please contact support. For
information on the embedded edition of ControlAP please see related documentation.
Support:
Technical
support is available at support@mediatracker.com (IM and voice support
also available) but limited to issues specific to ControlAP
installation and integration. Inquire about additional paid support
plans for general VOIP and Wi-Fi networking installation
assistance.
©2002-2006
mediatracker.com software.
