Category Archives: ISP

SMS Wi-Fi authentication solutions

In previous posts, we’ve discussed various method of Wi-Fi authentication, including “username & password authentication”, “wechat Wi-Fi” and “facebook Wi-Fi”…

SMS Wi-Fi requires clients to input a mobile phone number to receive an access code before visiting internet. So the internet provider can record clients phone numbers for marketing or security purpose.

In this post, I will guide you to enable SMS Wi-Fi authentication in WFilter NG firewall.

First, you need to setup a SMS service.

WFilter send SMS messages via web API, so you need to setup a SMS web service at first. The SMS web service can be in locale or internet.

In this practice, I setup an alibaba cloud account and downloaded the php SDK. The SDK is setup in a local web service. I also modified the SDK demo to get “phone” and “code” from web POST parameters.

Second, enable SMS authentication in WFilter.

In “Web Auth”, you need to choose “SMS” auth type. The “SMS API URL” is configured as the local SDK demo URL.

When a client want to visit internet, a web portal will appear. The client needs to input a correct phone number to receive the access code.

In WFilter account login history, you will be able to see the ip address, mac address and phone number of Wi-Fi clients.

Clients internet activities will also be recorded.

More details about “web authentication” can be found at here: http://wiki.wfilterngf.com/Webauth

Integrate paypal payment with your ISP service.

The ISP module of WFilter NG firewall provides a total solution of bandwidth rate limiting, cap limiting and reporting of ISP users. In this topic, I would like to introduce a paypal integration solution for your ISP service to run automatically. It works like this:

Users get email/web portal notification of ISP account expire date.
Users can click “renew” to make payment online via paypal.
Upon receiving of a payment, payal will call a callback script to extend users’ expire date.

The whole process can all be done automatically. Below is a demonstration of certain steps:

The first, you need create payment buttons in your paypal business account.

The second, you need to have an order landing page in your website.

When users click “renew” in their userportal or email notification, they will be redirected to the landing page. The landing page shall parse the “token” field to get username, expire date and current bandwidth policy. So you can calculate the costs for renewing. You can find an example of the landing page in WFilter_paypal_sdk.

The third, you need to enable “Instand payment notifications” in your paypal profile for callback.

When enabled, paypal will call the callback url for WFilter NG firewall to extend user date.

The full php SDK soure code can be downloaded at here: WFilterNGF_Paypal_SDK_1_0.zip

Please note, we only provide a simple callback example. To make it work, you need to do below modifications at least:

Customize the landing page. For example, provide “1 month” and “2 months” choices.
Customize the callback php script. The default script extend this user for one month only.

For any question, please feel free to contact IMFirewall Support. We’re always will to help.

How to manage expiring and expired users in WFilter for ISP?

WFilter NG firewall has an ISP module, which is designed as a total solution for ISP management. You can check the details at this post: the ISP module of WFilter NG Firewall, a total solution for ISP management, and a online guide at: ISP management.

I would like to demonstrate how you can manage expiring and expired users in the ISP module.

1. You can add expiring and expired to different groups.

When enabled, certain users will be added to groups automatically. So you add more policies to these groups in “Access Control” and “Bandwidth”. For example, you can:

a). Send expiring notification to expiring users with “Web Push” module. Users can renew online, and renew process can be complete automatically.

b). Restrict internet access of expired users. Please note that login is not allowed for expired PPPoE and WebAuth users.

2. Email notification to expiring users.

You can schedule email notification to expiring users at different time point(for example, 30 days before expiry). Users also can click the “order now” link in email to renew their account. Please check below screenshots.

A sample email received:

More details can be found at here: WFilter NG Firewall ISP Module

WFilter added “Email Notification” in the ISP module.

The ISP module of “WFilter NG firewall” designed for ISPs to manage users and bandwidth plans.

Beside “user web portal”, a recent update of “WFilter NG Firewall” added “Email Notification” feature. So users can get email notification of their bandwidth usage.