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WorldSpot.net documentation
Hotspot setup
To setup your hotspot, you first need to register to WorldSpot.net and create a hotspot, this is free. You will also be able to evaluate all worldspot services for free.
In this section you will install and configure the captive portal software inside your router and connect it to the worldspot hotspot you have just created.
Once done, you should be able to connect to your hotspot and be redirected to the default worldspot portal page. You should also be able to connect to the default unlimited access profile for free, and have access to the internet.
This step is mandatory and absolutely free. No need to go farther until you configured the hotspot captive portal software.
When everything is working, you may customize your hotspot.
Hardware compatibility
Worldspot.net service can run on a wide range of hardware, because it is based on coova-chili (was chillispot), an open source software that runs on linux.
Using a wifi router is the most cost-effective and simple solution. There are several open source firmwares on which WorldSpot.net is compatible.
Depending on your country, you can buy a pre-configured hotspot router with the new WorldSpot firmware at the shop.
WorldSpot firmware
WorldSpot now provides a very easy to setup custom firmware. It is based on latest openwrt, and is fully configured remotely from your worldspot account.
It is the recommended firmware.
Please read the dedicated page about WorldSpot firmware for more details and instructions.
Other firmware compatibility
WorldSpot service is compatible with all firmware that use coova-chilli software. Here is some instructions about some of these firmwares.
Hotspot configuration page
In this page you will configure the behavior of your hotspot landing page. Here are the descriptions of the page fields:
Hotspot name
You can change your hotspot name. Note that it does not have to be the same as your hotspot SSID. However, it is your hotspot radius ID. If your hotspot was running when you change that, it will stop working until you reconfigure the new name.
Hotspot require validated users
This option requires that your registered users validate their email before they can use the hotspot free profiles. Note that this doesn't apply to tickets if you haven't checked 'Ticket require registration before use'
When unchecked, users have direct access to the free profiles. They will appear as 'anonymous' in the hotspot history. The access profile limitations are handled per wifi device. If you grant 1 free hour, it will be 1 free hour per wifi device.
If you check this option, your new registered users will be granted a 5 minute connection to the internet to read their email and validate the registration.
If after the 5 minutes, the account is still not validated, the user can retry 5min later, then 30min later then 60min then every 24h.
There is a protection to prevent abuse of this service. Each wifi device is granted one email validation session every week. This means that the user can't register another account to get 5 more minutes on the same wifi device.
Users connect directly after identification
With this option, your users will be connected directly after they enter their login/password. The intermediate page is skipped, unless the connection is impossible. Note that if you don't enable this option, users will be presented a 'direct connect' option near the login/password form.
Hide direct login checkbox
Near the login/password form entry, the direct login checkbox will be hidden.
Show minimal information in the landing page
When checked, some infos won't be showed in the landing page, making it simpler. The user connection statistics and other connected users will be hidden. This makes the hotspot landing page lighter.
Tickets require registration before use
When checked, your users will be required to register before they can use their ticket code. This is useful if you want that all your users validate their registration before usage of their ticket.
Once they have registered and logged in, they can enter the ticket codes then login.
In the hotspot history you will see both the user name and the ticket name. The ticket code will be remembered inside the user account.
Please see the access profile documentation to get more info about how to configure the connection options your users will be presented.
Show profile details
In the landing page, when listing the free and billed access profiles your users can choose, the access profile details are automatically displayed in the list. When not enabled, there is a 'details' link in the list.
No banner in paypal pages
When online billing is activated, the worldspot logo will be removed from paypal payment pages.
Don't remember last ticket
Useful when using WorldSpot.net on shared computers. By default, your ticket code will be remembered so you don't have to type it again when you reconnect. On a shared computer, this can be a problem. This option de-activates this feature.
Tickets with no password (single code)
You have the option to use only a login instead of login+password. The password is set to blank, and the login is the password. Users will be asked only for a login without password.
Please note that this option is insecure, as the login can be sniffed, and only the password is encrypted.
No user registration for online billing
By default when you have setup online billing, users will be proposed to optionnaly register an account. This option disables this
Redirect URL after connect
You can optionally choose an url to which your users are redirected when they get connected. This url must contain "http:" or "https:"
It is recommended to add a link in your website that goes back to the hotspot welcome page, in order to let your users get their connection status or logout.
This link should be http://192.168.182.1:3990 to get a connection status, or http://192.168.182.1:3990/logout to directly logout.
For coova users, the default url is http://10.1.0.1:3660 or http://10.1.0.1:3660/logout
This option is not available for free hotspots.
CoovaAP hotspot options
This option is used by coovaAP automatic configuration feature and by worldspot firmware. You can specify additionnal coova-chilli options.
Warning: the syntax is not the same for these 2 firmwares:
CoovaAP uses the old "chilli.conf" syntax, whereas worldspot firmware uses the new coova-chilli shell syntax.
Welcome message to display to your hotspot users
Here you can edit a welcome message that will be displayed when your users first connect to the landing (or reconnect). With the Wysiwyg editor, you can upload images or flash animations into your welcome page by pressing the 'picture' button in the editor toolbar.
Create custom page
When you click on create custom page, a second wysiwyg editor area appears. There you can change the layout of all your landing pages. It will replace the worldspot banner and left menu bar.
You must add in your page "%(content)" that will be replaced by the landing page dynamic content.
Note that you won't have some user options anymore. But you can add them by adding the following links in your page.
| Link destination | |
| User history (useful only for registered users) | UserHist?uam=1 |
| Change language | Uam?lng=fr (supported language codes are actually en, fr, es, sv, de, no, it, pl) |
| Account Settings (useful only for registered users) | AccountSetting?uam=1 |
| Back to landing page | Uam |
Note: in the link editor, don't select http:// as the protocol ( must be selected) don't add http: or whatever to the link destination.
Access profile management page
Here you describe all the limitations that you will apply to your users. In order to get your hotspot working you need to define at least one access profile.
An access profile can be 'offered for free' to all users and/or associated to a ticket or sold online.
For each access profile, you must also select the hotspots to which it applies. All tickets and users of the access profile can roam between all the hotspots that are selected. If the hotspot is not selected, the ticket won't be valid or the access won't be showed in the free access list
For example, you can setup a free 30 minutes trial access profile and create another 2h access profile dedicated to tickets that you sell.
You can setup the total allowed time or volume in your profile. This means that the user can connect multiple times to reach the profile limitations.
When entering a time, you can use units starting with: "d" for day "h" for hour "s" for second. For example: 1h40m35s or 1 hour 40 minutes 35s
When entering a volume, you can use the following units starting with: "k" for kilo (1024), "m" for mega (1024kilo), "g" for giga (1024 mega). When displayed, the value will use the biggest unit.
The "Time to reset limitation" parameter allows you to set an automatic reset of the limitations after the limitations are reached and after the specified amount of time after the first connection is reached. This unique feature allows you to limit the usage of your hotspot during several periods of time. For example you can limit to 2 hours per day or 10GByte per week.
The "Expiration time after first connection" option disables the access after the specified amount of time after the first connection, whatever the hotspot usage.
Ticket creation
Tickets are the same as private accounts. The only difference with private accounts, is that you can choose the login and password. For Tickets they are automatically generated.
On private accounts, there is a specific option: "multiple usage ticket". When enabled, the account limitations will be handled per user device, and the account is allowed to be used simultaneously on multiple devices. When not enabled, no simultaneous usage is allowed, and limitations are handled whatever the devices that are used.
Here you choose how to manage your hotspot. You have the choice of setting up multiple usage tickets or pre-print your tickets. Each solution has its advantages: With multiple tickets, you don't have to handle tickets at the desk. However, it is handled per mac address. If a user can change its mac address, it can bypass the limitations. With pre-printed tickets, you have no limitation bypass possibility, and you can use the printed ticket as a communication medium to advertise for your business. You can also use both solutions e.g. display a free trial multiple usage ticket code in all your hotel rooms. If the client needs more, you can sell pre-printed tickets.
To edit or reset whatever ticket or account, simply recreate it. If the login matches, the created ticket will simply replace the existing one
Ticket bundles (Mass ticket creation)
You can create multiple tickets and let worldspot create the ticket names and password. You just specify some informations like
- an access profile
- a ticket name prefix that you can use to identify your ticket bundles
- a numbering start (note zeros will be prepended so that there will be 4 digits)
- the number of tickets
- the password length
- and the password type (numeric or alphanumeric)
Once created you can then print your ticket bundle in the ticket printing page.
To extend a ticket bundle, select the bundle to extend and click "select". All your bundle settings will be automatically reloaded so that you only have to specify the number of ticket you want to add to the existing bundle.
Soon you will be able to create and print your bundle in one single step.
Ticket printing
In the ticket printing page, you can fully customize your ticket content with the WYSIWYG editor and include your own logo. You have to use specific keywords what will be replaced when printing:
- %(login) is the ticket login
- %(password) is the ticket password
- %(profileDesc) is your access profile short description (optionnal)
- %(profileName) is your access profile name (optionnal)
Once you created your ticket model, you must give it a name and click "create new", it will save your ticket model in a new entry. If you click on save, it will overwrite your existing ticket, even if you change the name.
Then select the tickets that you want to print (click display to have the ticket list), then you can click on "print" after selecting the number of rows and columns per page.
Mac Address tickets
You can create (and sell) tickets for ANY wifi device, including wifi phones (or game consoles) that don't have web browsers! Or you can also register your personal PC for unlimited use without the need for registering. To enable MAC address Authentication, you must enable MACAuth in dd-wrt. (or simply add "macauth" in chilli.conf)
Please keep in mind that the mac address is easily sniffed and duplicated in some wifi devices. It is NOT secure!
To register a MAC address
Simply create an private account whose login is the MAC address. (a mac address is 6 hexadecimal bytes in uppercase separated by a "-" : 00-AA-BB-CC-DD-EE ) For the password, the default chillispot MAC authentication password is "password". You can change this value by adding "macpasswd mypasswd" in chilli.conf or dd-wrt chillispot additional options. You can choose any access profile for the mac address.
How to get your user's device mac address?
This procedure is a little tricky: You must ask your users to connect their wifi device to your hotspot ssid. Then they must switch it off after the ip address was assigned by chillispot. Your user must note the time at which the connection was done and give it to you. In the hotspot history you will get a MAC_UNKNOWN entry with a message 'Mac unknown'. You can then copy paste the mac address into a new private account. You must ask your user not to switch on the device before 10 minutes after it was off. Switching off the device during 10 minutes is the only way that was found for chillispot to make a new authentication request. If the device is switched on before the 10 minutes, there won't be any new mac address authentication request made, and the device will still be considered as unauthenticated. As the device does not have a web browser, it cannot login nor logout, the device must be switched off during 10 minutes to be considered as disconnected.
If your access profile limit is reached temporarily, and you must reconnect, you must switch the device off during 10 minutes.
Online billing setup
Your hotspot users can pay their internet access online with a credit card or a paypal account, making your hotspot sales totally automated. Unlike most existing solutions, payments are made directly from your clients into your own paypal account, so you don't have to wait to get your money.
You have the choice of sharing your hotspot revenue or subscribing a monthly fee to get 100% of all revenues. In case of sharing, WorldSpot will alternatively bill users for your account and WorldSpot account maintaining at least 75% revenue for you. The revenue share is calculated on the net income (after removing the paypal fee). You never get less than your revenue share. This means that WorldSpot never owes you any money.
In order to let WorldSpot bill your users for you, you need a premier or business paypal account and grant WorldSpot your permission to make the express checkout API calls for you.
If you don't have a paypal account, click here to get a new one.
You might want to get a paypal micropayment account to get lower fees for payments under 12$.
- Your paypal account must be verified with a bank account or a card
- It must be upgraded to a business paypal account
- Go to Tools / All tools / API Credentials
- Click on "Grant API Permission".
- In the API partner Username enter paypal1_api1.worldspot.net.
- Select "Express_Checkout" then click on submit.
- Then in the worldspot website, go "Setup online billing" enter your paypal account, and select your currency.
- Simply create an access profile and set a price for it, then it will appear in the landing page!
If you use WorldSpot firmware or coovaAP firmware, then you are done.
If you use another firmware, then you must add paypal website to the list of allowed websites that the user can access without being connected to the hotspot. To do this you must use CoovaChilli uamdomain option to allow paypal domains.
uamdomain paypal.com uamdomain paypalobjects.com uamdomain 112.2o7.net
Note that DD-WRT (that uses older chillispot) does not have these options, and may cause problems connecting to paypal. DD-WRT is not recommended if you want to use online billing.
If you use CoovaAP auto config or worldspot firmware, you don't have to do this as it is automatically configured for you.
Et voilà, your hotspot is ready for selling access tickets in a fully automatic way.