Ray Quota Policy in Captive Portals:


In this article, we will be covering how to use quota policies in Ray captive portals. Just a brief introduction for all those who might not have a good understanding of how captive portals / Splash pages work. 


A Captive Portal / Splash page is usually the Web page that most people usually see when they connect to a free / Public 

Wi-Fi HotSpot. 


A captive portal usually prompts a user to enter a phone Number, Name, or simply watch an Ad to get access to the 

free public internet.


Below is an image of an example of a splash page / captive portal.




In simple terms, the Captive Portal / Splash page acts as Firewall or similar to an everyday security guard with a metal detector at the mall that frisks you before granting you access, In some cases requesting you to register in the Visitors book before you can enter the premises.


Ray provides several different types of Captive portals as mentioned below;


a) Voucher-based captive portal:  

This captive portal work with voucher code authentication, the user needs to enter a valid and correct voucher provided by the Internet distributor ( office or public places like Malls), and with a valid and correct code Internet service will be available with a certain amount of data or fixed time duration depends on what plan has been selected for the Voucher based users.


b) Survey-based captive portal:

This type of captive portal contains certain survey questions and details asking fields, after filling up the survey and answering the questions asked in the survey user will get Internet service.

Mostly shopping centers or cafeterias, restaurants use this to get data information about the customer's response to the services and products.  


c) OTP captive portal:

This type of captive portal works on Mobile SMS OTP ( One time password) based authentication where the captive portal asks for the user's mobile number and the user receives OTP over SMS and as the user enters a valid and correct OTP code in the portal user will be able to access the Internet service.


d) OTP via E-mail Captive portal setup:


     This kind of captive portal works on E-Mail based OTP authentication. The user enters the E-Mail id detail in the portal field and the user receives an OTP code via mail and as soon as the user enters a valid and correct OTP code in the portal user receives active Internet service.


e) Advertisement Captive portal:

 

     This is the captive portal that works on advertisement image clicking or video watched by the users.

     As the user watches an advertisement video or clicks an advertisement image, a rewarding user 

     will be able to access Internet service as per the plan of quota or validity time duration.


f)  Username & Password Captive Portal with Internal Authentication:


      This portal works with captive portal users created under the captive portal service. Where the user needs to enter the correct and valid username and password and Internet service will be enabled for that particular user as per the plan.

   


just to mention but a few,



However, all the above-mentioned options are simply for authentication / providing the identity of who you are! 

But as with all free resources, you need to regulate and limit them which is usually done by defining the duration of how long the resource will be freely accessible, And it's at this point that we introduce the quota policy.




Quota Policy:


A quota by definition is a fixed share of something that a person or group is entitled to receive or bound to contribute.

In this scenario, free internet access is what a user who accesses our Wi-Fi and captive portal is entitled to receive, however, we need to determine the fixed quantity of time or volume that internet access should last.


Ray provides 2 types of quota access:

  1. Volume (Data bundle access in MBs)
  2. Time (Time/Duration based access in Hrs/days)


To configure a quota policy in Ray kindly follow the below steps;


Step 1: Create a captive portal using the following article: Article on how to create Ray Captive Portals


Step 2: Click on the profiles menu,

Step 3: Select Available profiles

Step 4: Click on the Policy tab

Step 5:  Click on the create policy tab

Step 6: Click on Quota policy in the drop-down box in the description.


The above steps are depicted in screenshots below:


STEPS 1 TO 3



STEP 4 & 5




STEPS TO CREATE POLICY FOR CAPTIVE PORTAL


STEPS 1 TO 5




STEP 6





STEP 7



STEP 8





Creating a security group to attach the quota policy created from step 1 to step 8 above:



STEP 9



STEPS 10 TO STEP 12




STEPS 13 & 14




The above steps covered creating the quota policy and attaching it to a security group. In the next article, we shall cover associating a security group to a Wireless SSID  & Wired Network.






Thanks,


Ray Support

support.ray.life