The theme for this thesis are information technologies, more specifically wireless local area networks (IEEE 802.11) in small office home office environments. In the introductory section we examine the structure and technology of small business networks, as well as the role of wireless networks in small business environments. The experimental work was based on captive portal feature which would provide an effective way of managing guest access to a wireless network for the clients restaurant. The objectives of the thesis were: (1) using pfSense and the captive portal feature to create a secure wireless access point for the guests, (2) allowing access to the network only to the guests using vouchers with randomly generated string of characters, (3) to design captive portal pages in accordance with the corporate image of the company, (4) include promotion of restaurant services on the captive portal pages. Analysis of pfSense captive portal was done by open source packet analyzer software – Wireshark. Captive Portal pages were designed with CSS, HTML and PHP code. These include authentication form for entering the coupon code, elements to promote the restaurant (a button to the restaurants website, company logo, sliding window, a link to the social profile of the restaurant). The pages include a seperate website with a sample contract that includes detailed terms and conditions for using restaurant's free wireless network. In addition to manual code entry, an automated code entry sistem was designed using quick response (QR) code. It provides an easier and faster way to authenticate with the captive portal on mobile devices. With pfSense captive portal, we have successfully designed an efficient system for managing user access to restaurant's wireless network.
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