Online Help

Settings:

• ControlAP Configuration:   Selecting Configuration from the Settings Menu opens a pop-up dialog window as shown:

 

• There are four tabs to select from: Basic , Captive, Admin and Advanced. Normally the default settings should suffice after ControlAP detects and selects the network adapter to use.
  
  

• The Basic Tab:   The following are the basic configurable options of ControlAP: (as shown above)
  
  
• Network Connections:
  
• AP Adapter: This is a drop down selection listing all of your network adapters. This is the adapter on which you will provide shared access to users and not the adapter from which you connect to the Internet. By default, wireless adapters are picked over LAN adapters but you can change this by selecting the correct adapter. This is especially the case if you have more than one LAN adapter to select from. Normally one uses the IP address selected from the list but one can also manually edit the IP address text field.
  
  
  • Note: You should assign a static IP address from your network settings. This is usually found under TCP/IP settings in your network properties (see help for you operating system or under ControlAP  installation help). The value for the IP address can be any local address ranges such as 192.168.x.x. or 10.10.x.x  (Shown above is 192.168.0.1) Use 255.255.255.0 for the Subnet Mask. The DNS server and Gateway fields can be left blank.
    
    
• Internet Adapter: This is the adapter on your internet connection such as the ethernet adapter connected to your broad band modem or a dialup connection or a local network router. If you have not connected yet or to refresh the current settings you can do so with the Detect button
  
  
• Detect Button: This will force a new detection of the network adapters and the current IP addresses and automatically fill in settings.
  
  
• Options:
  
  
• Auto Start, Logging, Beep: Checking these boxes enables these features, unchecking disables them. Autostart means that the server will run whenever you execute ControlAP. Under Windows this means the main console will not display unless you click on the tray icon. Logging will create two timestamped log files for Dhcp and web events. These will reside in the log folder. Beep will make a sound whenever a new client connects to your hotspot. For a more customized event when a new user connects see the Advanced tab.
  
  
  
• The Captive Tab:   The following are the configurable settings for the Captive Portal (Welcome Page):
  
  
   
  
  

• Enable Portal: This will enable or disable the captive welcome html page for when a user first accesses your AP. Enabling this feature (enabled by default) will display a default welcome page Disabling this option will allow a new client to access the desired URL without any redirection to a welcome or entry page.
  
  
• AP Name: This is the name that can be used the location field of a browser displayed in the welcome page if enabled. vNote: Currently a dotted name  is required to avoid adding to an existing network domain name.
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• Timeout: If the captive welcome page is enabled, the amount of time n minutes before the user is forced to see the welcome page again.
  
  
• Welcome Headline: The headline to appear in your welcome page
  
  
• Welcome Message: The message to appear in your welcome page (follows image).  You can add a acceptible usage policy here.
  
  
• Select image to copy to web folder: You can replace the default logo that appears in the welcome page with your own graphic by using the browse button to select a file from your file system.
  
  
• See the Additional configuration and Troubleshooting section in Online Help for more information on custom html pages.
  
  
• Note: Using the Web administrator (not available with the free trial version) you can also change the messages for not just the welcome page but the home page and warning page (when using timed sessions).
  
  
  
• The Admin Tab:
  
   
  
  

  This allows one to enable and customize the remote administrative access as well as the DHCP IP address range
  
  

  • Remote Administration:
    
    
    • You can enable/disable remote admin, specify a username/password and also specify which port to use. Note: the remote administration feature is disabled ny default. It should be enabled if you want to use the web based and/or telnet adminstrator.
      
      
    • IP: Aallows connections originating only from the IP(s) specified for security reasons (more than one can be specified using a delimiter). A SSH server could be used to connect locally and still allow external access via port forwarding for encrypted access. By default only localhost is allowed.
      
      
    • Port: TCP port to connect to admin.
      
      

  Telnet Remote Commands:  This includes the ability to start and stop the server remotely and change settings such as the web page message and additionally add and remove users. To obtain a list of commands simply type 'help' or ? at the command line prompt after logging in.
  
  Web Administration:  Accessed over the web as follows e.g:   http://localhost:8090/admin
  Same as the telnet commands with additional configurable settings and an easier to use interface.
  (note: not available with free trial version)
  
  DHCP:  IP address range for clients. Usually set automatically from AP adapter address +1 to 250.
  
  

• The Advanced Tab:   The following are the configurable settings on the Advanced tab:
  
  
  
  

• Site Username / Site Password:
  This enables a sitewide username and password to access the hotspot. This adds a bit more security than having a default publicly accessible hotspot. Note: use WEP encryption if you are really concerned with eavesdropping.
  
  This allows a semi-public hotspot in that all your friends and family can access the hotspot easily byt using the same username and password. This is also the first username/password pair if you are using a list of usernames and passwords (not available with the free trial version) The list is simply a comma delimited plain text file named access.txt. Note that there are no spaces between username and password. Between username/password pairs however it can be eol or comma (to accommodate database text file exports)
  
  example access.txt:
  
  user2,passwd2
  user3,passwd3
  user4,passwd4
  .
  .
  
  
• Enable NAT:
  
  
• This enables and disables Network Address Translation support. 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).
  



• Supporting NAT:
  
  ControlAP works without NAT by automatically proxying 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 turned off by default for ControlAP. 
  
  ControlAP however will support NAT using the underlying OS's support for NAT. The following section describes how to enable NAT for your OS. After enabling NAT support for the OS, enable it for ControlAP under ControlAP's Advanced Settings.
  
  
  • Enabling NAT for Windows 2000, XP, 2003: 
    1. Make sure the Routing and Remote Access Service is started and set the startup type to automatic (Services is found under Administrative Tools).
       
       
  • Enabling NAT for Windows 95,98,Me:
    1. Run the disable DHCP and disable DNS scripts (found on windows installation disk)
    2. Turn on ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) using the Internet adapter as the one to share.
       
       
  • Enabling NAT for MacOSX and Zaurus (and other Unix platforms):
    1. Install and run iptables support. Note MacOSX currently does not support NAT please email support if you need this working.
       
       
  • NAT is currently not available for the Pocket PC.
  
  

• Expire Sessions: (enables timed single sessions)
  
  
• You can limit the time allowed that will display a timed out web page. To renew sessions an administrator or manager of the hotspot can use the user management web interface to renew time. The user management web based interface is suitable for use at POS machines to charge for customers access.
  
  
• There are 2 web based  user management interfaces available via:
  http://localhost:8090/                (basic)
  http://localhost:8090/manager   (advanced)
  
  The basic version (as shown in the demo) simply lists the timed out users as a list of buttons with usernames. Pressing on the user button to renew will renew the session and make the button disappear. There is also a default time limit field where one can change the default timeout (in minutes)
  
  The advanced version lists all users showing the time remaining for each with the ability to manually enter additional time or use one of three pre-selected times to add (in addition to the initial default renewal time)
  e.g. 15 min, 30 min 60 min (these amounts are all configurable from the web administrator).
  
  Note: by default the first session is free. To eliminate this, simply set the captive time limit to 0. See Additional Configuration for more info.
  
  
• Allowed Sites: These are sites that all users can access without needing to login or seeing a welcome page (comma delimited)
  
  
• User Notification: (command to execute when a new user connects)
  
  
• You can run a command line based command such as playing a custom mp3 file, running a script or running a command that takes the user info (consisting of ip address, mac address, hostname and card vendor) and use it in a command such as reading the text aloud or sending it somewhere else. The user info is specified to the command as %u
  
  
• Built-in internal command for Email : You can send yourself an email whenever a new user connects to your hotspot by specifying the following new user command:
  
  email [your email server]  [from address] [to address] [subject] [message]
  
  example:
    smtp/myserver.com from@myhotspot.com  myemail@myserver.com %info
  
  Note: To avoid relay errors make sure your mail server is the one that handles your email address. Also if the message is ommitted it will use the subject as the message as shown in the example above. %info is a placeholder that will be filled in with the user information..
  

• Auth Server: This allows one to bypass the built in captive portal welcome page and/or username/password login and use an external site to perform the authentication. e.g. externalauthserver.net:800/path See Additional configuration for more info. (note: not available with the trial version)
  
  
• Local Cache: Used when offline, you can display saved web sites by adding the sites to your web folder. Each site must have it's own folder which is the name of the site. e.g. /web/google.com/
  
  To save a web site simply add the pages to that subfolder. If using Windows and IE, simply save the website into that folder but rename the main page as index.html.
  
  
• See the Additional Configuration and Troubleshooting section in ControlAP Online Help for additional configuration features not found under Settings.
  
  
• FAQ