[Commotion-discuss] Commotion Splash Screen

[Darby Hickey]

Thanks Josh and Ryan -- those were my thoughts too. If we are talking about
Commotion's use-case as an intra-net without dependency on global Internet
access, then not having the splash page appear unless there is connectivity
seems like a problem -- but hopefully a problem with an easy solution?

If I am building a network with Commotion on which Internet is an
occasional added bonus, how do people access the network/the local apps
without going to the splashpage?


On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Joshua Breitbart <
breitbart at opentechinstitute.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 9/12/13 10:11 AM, Ryan Gerety wrote:
> > For now, we just need a way to let people know there is a
> > splash/community/apps page right?
> >
> > Perhaps access points should be named "go to x" so that people would
> > have some idea of where to go?
>
> But that instruction would only make sense if the Internet was down and
> the splash page wasn't working, right? So it's another node-by-node
> adjustment you would have to make after an outage.
>
> If I understand it correctly, you would still be able to get to a
> locally-hosted page or service by entering in the IP address, so we'd
> have to socialize an emergency IP address for people to enter in advance
> of an Internet outage, the way people in the US know to dial 911 in case
> of emergency. Or is that not how it would work?
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/12/2013 8:24 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
> >> Hi Dan,
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, the splash screen currently requires internet access to
> >> function. This is because the captive portal program intercepts and
> >> modifies responses to clients' DNS requests, and those responses only
> >> occur if DNS servers are available in the first place. With no internet
> >> access, no DNS response, no splash screen.
> >>
> >> I have worked on creating a captive portal solution for
> >> non-internet-connected Commotion networks, and it in fact works. The
> >> problem is that there is currently no way to have a router auto-detect
> >> whether it is currently connected to the internet or not, and then
> >> auto-configure its captive portal to do the right thing. If your network
> >> suffered an internet outage, you would have to either restart DNSmasq on
> >> each node, or reboot all the nodes, in order for the splash screen to
> >> continue to function. And then do the same thing once internet access
> >> was restored.
> >>
> >> There might be a way to run a script periodically to check for internet
> >> connectivity, and then restart DNSmasq if it detects an outage. I'll try
> >> to work on that and see what I can do.
> >>
> >> Do you know what versions of Firefox and Chrome didn't work with the
> >> splash page? If you can find out, I can look into that too.
> >>
> >> cheers,
> >> Dan
> >>
> >>
> >> On 09/12/2013 07:40 AM, Dan Hastings wrote:
> >>> Yesterday we had our first large internet outage since setting up our
> >>> first few commotion nodes.  I have our homepage in the our computer lab
> >>> set to google.com but since we are on an open network the commotion
> >>> splash screen comes up first.  This is great since it makes it easier
> >>> for students to access local applications without having to memorize
> the
> >>> location of the applications on the network.
> >>>
> >>> However, when our net went out the splash screen did not come up.  I
> was
> >>> wondering if anyone knew a way to set the splash screen so it will come
> >>> up regardless if their is internet access. Should the splash screen
> >>> appear anyway regardless and am I'm missing something in the captive
> >>> portal settings? Is there way to set the splash screen as a homepage?
> >>>
> >>> Also, I've noticed that some students who are running older versions of
> >>> Firefox and chrome in windows 7 would not be redirected to the splash
> >>> screen and could not access the internet.  After updating their
> browsers
> >>> we seemed to get to the splash screen fine to allow internet access.
> Not
> >>> sure if this has been a problem in the past or of I'm missing something
> >>> as well.
> >>>
> >>> Any guidance or help would be much appreciated.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>
> >>> Dan
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
> >>>
> >>
> >
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-- 
Darby Hickey
Program Associate, Open Technology Institute
New America Foundation
202-596-3415
oti.newamerica.net
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