2012-05-21 - Re: [GRASE-Hotspot] Changing 10.1.0.1 to hostname

Header Data

From: Tim White <ti***8@gmail.com>
Message Hash: 88ded0606a73d7bb583c8f41f97629a89edd18598044816b1e99f58617a211db
Message ID: <4FBA1F56.6060002@gmail.com>
Reply To: <B3CED890-FAED-4E19-8F50-2D1F64E39294@vilasmolic.co.uk>
UTC Datetime: 2012-05-21 03:56:22 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 20:56:22 +1000

Raw message 

On 21/05/12 19:46, Jurica Smoli\u0107 wrote:
> Hi tim is it possible to have the host name rather then the ip in the 
> url when users connect to hotspot?
>
> Also is it possible to remove grase out of the url. So it reads 
> http://hotspot/radmi or uam etc?

Hi Jurica.

It is possible, however the reason we use ip address instead of hostname 
is reliability. For example, some users have hard coded DNS settings, 
which will work once they are logged in, but might not work before hand. 
So basically, in testing, it was decided to use ip address (which is 
very common for captive portals) for reliability.

Some options.

1. We can use an external domain name (like login.grasehotspot.org) 
which points to 10.1.0.1. However, anyone who wants to change the range 
then has to make it use ip address again.

2. We use the local DNS with a hostname (and in fact we already do) and 
don't worry about the few users who for some reason don't resolve the 
local DNS. (Ignore the fact we can "force" local DNS via iptables, some 
users DNS just isn't going to work).
This option is already kinda there, grasehotspot.lan resolves to the 
hotspots local address, logout resolves to 1.0.0.0 which is a special 
logout ip address to force logout, and logoff also resolves to 1.0.0.0. 
However, as previously said, this doesn't always work well.

Feel free to open a ticket (trac.grasehotspot.org) and I'll look into 
making it an option to use hostname.

As for removing the grase part out of the URL, yes, but no. So that we 
can package it up without it interfering with other packages on the 
server (i.e you might want to run a website off the same computer for 
the local intranet), we only "hijack" urls below /grase/. (See the Alias 
in the Apache conf file). While you could have 2 aliases, one for 
/radmin and one for /uam, there are a few files and directories in 
/grase/ that are shared between them, and some of them could easily 
conflict with a website on that host.
This isn't something that can be easily made configurable as it would 
require changing files that are installed by a package, which can then 
cause problems.
Other than making the URL shorter, what's your reason for wanting to 
remove grase from the url? Given that users don't have to type the url, 
and if you are on the hotspot side, getting the link to admin is easy.

Tim

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