Splash!
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2006-06-20 18:29:26 - Graham EllisA Splash page is the ultimate home page. When I'm away (as I am this week) and I connect in via a hotel network, the first page that I'm offered is the hotel supplier's - no matter what URL I've asked for. Only when I complete a login form (which will involve giving an account and password number, or signing up via a credit card) am I allowed beyond the splash page / splash server.
On a company's intranet, there's often a splash page to give employees the company news when they first connect.
At the current training centre, we don't have a splash page but at Well House Manor, we WILL, even though we're going to offer inclusive internet access to all our guests.
1. It will allow us to broadcast to all users (via the splash page) a message of the day, and to give them easy links to our "FAQ" or "RTFM".
2. It will allow us to give users a password / login code so that they can connect in via an unsecured network, but anyone who's out in the street just passing by, and our neighbours, can't steal our bandwidth
3. It will give us a mechanism through which we can control access in case we need to; most people are trustworthy, but if we're alerted to network abuse the technology associated with the splash page will let up selectively switch a rogue user's access off.
I started searching for splash page software online and was surprised I didn't come up with very much ... something called nocat looks promising, but the dates on the software are all a couple of years old and it looks perhaps fading or dormant. Not something to start using for a medium to long term life. Then it stuck me that Linux's iptables and a router box will probably do the job admirably. No doubt there will be some technical articles and blog entries following, but I think that we'll end up running a Linux router / firewall with default masquerading of port 80 to the local web page, and rules that block all other outgoing ports. A user signs in and the tables will be updated to give them direct net access and will unblock other ports ... and a monitor daemon will clean up old rules from time to time.