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Configuring portal authentication, Overview – H3C Technologies H3C WX3000E Series Wireless Switches User Manual

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Configuring portal authentication

Overview

Portal authentication helps control access to the Internet. It is also called Web authentication. A website

implementing portal authentication is called a portal website.
With portal authentication, an access device redirects all users to the portal authentication page. All

users can access the free services provided on the portal website. However, to access the Internet, a user

must pass portal authentication.
A user can access a known portal website and enter username and password for authentication. This
authentication mode is called active authentication. There is also another authentication mode, forced

authentication, in which the access device forces a user who is trying to access the Internet through HTTP

to log on to a portal website for authentication.
The portal feature provides the flexibility for ISPs to manage services. A portal website can, for example,
present advertisements and deliver community and personalized services. In this way, broadband

network providers, equipment vendors, and content service providers form an industrial ecological

system.
A typical portal system comprises these basic components: authentication client, access device, portal

server, authentication/accounting server, and security policy server.

Figure 556 Portal system components

The components of a portal system interact in the following procedure:

1.

When an unauthenticated user enters a website address in the browser's address bar to access the
Internet, an HTTP request is created and sent to the access device. The access device then redirects

the HTTP request to the portal server's Web authentication homepage. For extended portal

functions, authentication clients must run the portal client software.

Authentication/accounting

server

Security policy server

Portal server

Authentication client

Access device

Authentication client

Authentication client