RUCKUS WISPr

Configuring a RUCKUS site to use WISPr with a RUCKUS vSZ is easy.

Your Site

All you need for your site is a RUCKUS AP, a mispan power injector per AP and a basic router to do NAT and DHCP. You may use a PoE+ switch instead of a midspan power injector if you want to connect more devices. The router will do NAT and DHCP as described in my post on sub natted wispr sites.

Your Data Center

In my data center I'm using vSZ to command and control my AP(s), and I'm using rXg and my external portal and RADIUS server.

vSZ Setup

In my WISPr zone I have my WISPr WLAN.

In my WISPr WLAN I have configured it to use my Hotspot Config (External Portal Config) and my radius server.

My Hotspot config. In here I have set the external portal server. I highly recommend using https and its default port 443.

One more important thing to have configured correctly in your Hotspot config is your Walled Garden. This config will allow unauthenticated users to be able to access your portal so they can get authenticated, potentially through buying access!

My Radius config. The important things to have correct in the RADIUS config are the IP address/resolvable hostname, the ports and the shared secret. See Security::Authentication:: Proxy(SZ Authenticator). You can also configure RADIUS Accounting. It is not strictly necessary.

Radius Advanced Options

When these are configured correctly, a device that joins the WLAN will be redirected to the external portal server with some extra data ("wispr data") in its HTTP query parameters.

Getting Online

When the device first connects to the network and tries to access the web, it will be force-redirected by the AP and wispr data will be appended to its query.

The device will present as UNAUTHORIZED in the vSZ.

At this point the user will have the oppertunity to create an account and pay for usage via the captive portal. I am skpping past account creation and paying to focus on RADIUS and API workflow, those will be covered in another post.

Once the user has registered their account and paid, the external portal server must inform the infrastructure that this device should be online. This is done by a "WISPr login" API transaction. With RUCKUS, this API transaction provokes the vSZ to send an ACCESS-REQUEST RADIUS transaction to the external portal server, which will be responded to with an access- accept now that this device has usage.

Now the status of this device in the vSZ will be authorized, and the device is fully online and able to access the internet.