[Commotion-dev] replacing Nodogsplash with Luci-app-splash

[Dan Staples]

We've been talking about replacing our Nodogsplash captive portal and
luci-commotion-splash configuration front-end with Freifunk's
luci-app-splash (which we used to use pre v1), for reasons of reducing
image size and memory usage. I've done a comparison of the two options,
and this is what I've found for luci-app-splash:

* Uses uhttpd, doesn't come with its own http server. Also doesn't
report bizarrely large memory usage like Nodogsplash.
* Lease time granularity is only in hours, not minutes.
* It's definitely smaller. The ipk file is 32.7k, while NDS and
luci-commotion-splash ipks total ~92k.
* By default, un-splashed clients can access the /24 client subnet of
the node without filtering. So to give unfiltered access to the entire
mesh, we would have to make modifications to allow un-splashed access to
10/8, 100.64/10, and 169.254/16.
* There are no options for immediate authentication, so that would have
to be a modification.
* It appears there is no ability to redirect to the original request
after splashing; it only redirects to a set homepage. This feature could
presumably be added by getting the REQUEST_URI env var in the uhttpd cgi
script and appending it to the redirect URL in the Location header, then
using that in the LuCI script to make the redirect.
* It is WISPr capable, which is cool.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn408679.aspx
* Its iptables rules are inserted in a way that doesn't lead to a race
condition with the iptables rules I need to insert for the DNS proxy
program I wrote, so that's a big headache I don't have to deal with.
* We'd have to make a modification to add a "local apps" button to the
splash page
* I don't know whether it has the same bug as Nodogsplash where you have
to click "accept" multiple times before it actually redirects, but I
would guess it doesn't.

So in summary, there doesn't seem to be any show stoppers in terms of
the possibility of replacing nodogsplash/luci-commotion-splash, it would
just take a good bit of work and modification.

Dan

-- 
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net
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