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

[Dan Staples]

So after taking a look at LuCI version 0.12 which is in Barrier Breaker
(I was looking at 0.11 before), the option of redirecting to the
original request is available. However, I also noticed a similar bug
that Nodogsplash has, where you have to click the "accept" button
multiple times before being released by the captive portal. I think this
could be solved by adding a simple sleep command after inserting
iptables rules and before redirecting the client.

On 12/09/2014 09:56 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
> 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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