Homepage Redirection

[asianman]

Is there anyway I can get users connecting thru my WinGate server to have their web browser always open up with the homepage of my choice? is this Port 80 redirection? Similar to HotSpot service... any help appreciated :)

[adrien]

Hi

You can override all connections to go to a specific server, but that would disrupt all their surfing.

Home page is a local setting in IE, I don't think you can change it remotely.

We are working on a sign-on system though for hotels/hotspots. It's a way away though.

Adrien

[ChrisH]

If I read your posting correctly, you want all users to go to a page of your choice when they first open their browsers regardless of what their home page is. If this is the case, they would go to this page, then what? How do they carry on browsing? If you are forcing them here why not force them to authenticate at the same time? I say this because if you use the JAVA client authentication you can redirect users to any page you want before they go their personal home page although there is a catch or two - they have to log in before they can continue browsing and JAVA pop ups have to be enabled If you think this might work for you let me know and I will post further info.

[asianman]

Well I don't need authentication as I just have assumed users. All I'm after is that the user opens a web browser and goes to my WISP homepage, then can continue to browse to any other page after they have gone to that page first, kind've like a hotspot service..

[ChrisH]

Most hotspots require some type of authentication albeit maybe before browser starts. My suggestion will only work with authentication in WG. So I'm afraid you are out of luck if you don't want users to authenticate.

[adrien]

Hotspots also usually require some sort of signin, or acceptance of terms etc.

We have plans for changes to our plugin API to allow plugins to redirect users to certain pages etc, which would then allow development of plugins for hotels, hot-spots etc etc, where a user could sign in, or pay a subscription to access Internet.

The tricky part is blocking them from everything except access to the sign-up page until they have signed in.

But at the moment, even using WinGate authentication won't really do what you want, unless you try modifying the java client page.. client.htm in the java folder. This is served to unauthenticated users once they connect to the www proxy. You can turn this into pretty much anything you like, but people will need to authenticate in order to stop it coming up again and again.

Adrien

[ChrisH]

...unless you try modifying the java client page.. client.htm in the java folder. This is served to unauthenticated users once they connect to the www proxy. You can turn this into pretty much anything you like, but people will need to authenticate in order to stop it coming up again and again.

Yes, that is what I was referring to. Works well actually.

The tricky part is blocking them from everything except access to the sign-up page until they have signed in.

You have to allow that page in policies separately from others. e.g. two policies for Everyone - one has unauthenticated access to the page and the other is your policy requirements

[adrien]

sure, that covers web access only though. If you wanted say a guest in a hotel to have to sign up with a web page before they would be allowed to say connect to a VPN, then you'd need to block all IP traffic from them until they signed up.

That's where hotspots etc have maybe a couple more requirements that we don't currently support, but could be done with a few changes to our plugin API.

Adrien

[ChrisH]

That's why you guys will come up with a solution. You're smart developers. Is there no standard for wifi type connections? The API plugin certainly seems to make sense to me.