Wilmagate

WilmaGate is a collection of open source tools for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting on an Open Access Network. It has been initially developed by the [http://netmob.unitn.it/ Computer Networks and Mobility Group] at the [http://www.unitn.it/ University of Trento] (Italy).

Its development has been part of the locally-funded [http://wilmaproject.unitn.it/ Wilma Project] and is now being pursued by the [http://twelve.unitn.it/ Twelve Project] under the name Uni-Fy. It is currently being used for wireless authentication at the Faculty of Science at the University of Trento and by the UniWireless network of Italian research groups participating to the [http://twelve.unitn.it/ Twelve Project] .

Features

The system has been designed in order to separate the user authentication phase (which is usually performed by a possibly remote ISP) from internet access provided at the user's current location by a local carrier.

Therefore, a multiplicity of authentication providers and of access providers is envisioned. The WilmaGate system provides code for both purposes and for a variety of authentication methods. Its modular and object-oriented structure allows programmers to easily add plug-in code for new authentication or accounting protocols. See [http://dit.unitn.it/~brunato/pubblicazioni/WMASH05.pdf this article] for details.

Steps

The following steps are performed in a normal user connection.

* The user's mobile terminal (laptop or PDA) physically connects to a network, ether by plugging a cable (Ethernet or Firewire) or by associating to a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth Access Point.

* The terminal automatically issues a DHCP handshake in order to set up an appropriate configuration for the network it is entering. By this action, the mobile terminal's existence is recognized by the "Gateway" component.

* The client starts some form of "authentication process", either by opening a web browser and having it redirected to an authentication provider of choice, or by some pre-installed authentication program.

* After authentication, the client has possibly full Internet access; however, some authentication-based restrictions are applicable.

Code

The access gateway is written in C++ and is executable both in Linux and Windows/Cygwin environments. The sample Captive portal authentication system is written in PHP.

External links

Publications

* Mauro Brunato, Renato Lo Cigno, Danilo Severina. " [http://dit.unitn.it/~brunato/pubblicazioni/medhoc06.pdf Managing Wireless HotSpots: the Uni-Fy Approach] ". MedHocNet 2006, Lipari (Italy), June 14-17, 2006.

* Mauro Brunato, Danilo Severina. " [http://dit.unitn.it/~brunato/pubblicazioni/WMASH05.pdf WilmaGate: a New Open Access Gateway for Hotspot Management] ". ACM WMASH 2005, Cologne (Germany), September 2, 2005.

* Roberto Battiti, Mauro Brunato, Renato Lo Cigno, Alessandro Villani, Roberto Flor, Gianni Lazzari. "WILMA: An Open Lab for 802.11 Hotspots". Proceedings of PWC2003, Venice (Italy), September 23-25, 2003.

Downloads

* [http://intelligent-optimization.org/wilmagate.html The "WilmaGate" page] at the NetMob Research Group
* [http://twelve.dit.unitn.it/unify-main.html The "Uni-Fy" page] at the TWELVE Project