The ZoneCD works by adding a piece of hardware between your AP (wireless access point or router) and your network or Internet connection. The piece of hardware used for the ZoneCD can be any PC with a minumum of 128MB RAM, two etherent cards, a floppy drive, and a CD-ROM (see system requirements). Once the initial setup and configuration is complete, the system can be run headless. Headless meaning there is no need for keeping a keyboard, mouse, or monitor hooked-up. The CD will boot completely unattended after setup is complete.

The ZoneCD has two very important services running that enable the system to operate as a self-contained wifi gateway. NoCat, and Dansgaurdian.

NoCat Captive Portal
The central feature of the ZoneCD is NoCat . NoCat is a captive portal that captures and redirects outbound 'web' traffic to a login or splash page. Nocat has been extremely customized to work with the Public IP servers to enable remote configuration, accounting, and usage limits. You can configure the ZoneCD to run NoCat in two modes. Open Mode, or Close Mode.

Open Mode should be used when all you want is a simple splash page. Open mode requires no registration for your users to use your wifi zone. A user opens their web browser and they are redirected to the ZoneCD splash page. Firewall rules and the splash page can be customized by editing and adding files to the configuration floppy (see docs or forum).

Open mode does not use Public IP's Control server and no registration is required with Public IP to operate in this mode. There is no information shared between the ZoneCD and Public IP in Open mode. Public IP has no idea who, or how many people are using the ZoneCD in Open mode. Privacy is your right, and rights are respected here.

Closed Mode works with Public IP's flagship system — Zone Control. Booting the ZoneCD into Closed mode will enable all the features available in Zone Control. User Authentication, User Classes, Time Limits, Download Limits, Open and Close times, etc..

Closed mode will not allow access to the Internet unless the end-user registers for your Zone. However, you do have an option to allow anonymous access in Closed mode. This is usefull when you do not want to require registration, but still want a login box to allow a user to login to get priveledged access. It is also a way to take advantage of using the Control server to regulate end-user usage.

Closed mode allows you to assign different users, differnet rights and permsions while in your wifi zone. There are four user classes. These classes are tottally customizable and are covered in more detail during the setup of your Zone in Zone Control.

End-User Classes and default settings:

• Protected: ALLOWS traffic on 80, 443, and 110. Content filter enabled.
• Liberated: BLOCKS traffic on 21 25 445 1214 3689 6667 6699. Content filter disabled.
• Trusted: Firewall disabled. Content filter disabled.
• Super: Given network priority, pre-empt's traffic from other classes. Firewall disabled. Content filter disabled.

DansGuardian Content Filtering
DansGuardian is an award winning web content filter for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, and Solaris that uses Squid to do all the fetching. It filters using multiple methods. These methods include URL and domain filtering, content phrase filtering, PICS filtering, MIME filtering, and file extension filtering.

Public IP has implemented content filtering to not only protect your network, but more importantly to protect your, and your user's, civil rights. Possibly even prevent criminal charges? Check this thread on DSL Reports to see if content filtering is something you should be concerned about in your wifi zone.

The ZoneCD can be configured to use content filtering in the Protected and/or Liberated User Classes. It can also be completely turned off. The content phrase filtering will check for pages that contain profanities and phrases often associated with pornography and other undesirable content. Content filtering can be turned off for individual users by identifying the user as Liberated, or Trusted in your Zone User administrative page located in Zone Control.

The ZoneCD filters :

• Text and HTML pages for obscene (sexual, racial, violent, etc) content.
• Sites using the PICS labeling system.
• According to MIME type and file extension (.exe, .mp3, etc) * complete list *
• According to Regular Expression URLs.
• Block all files > 2MB.

The filtering basically serves two purposes: 1) It prevents end-users from viewing inappropriate content that could possibly offend your other customers or visitors. 2) It prevents end-users from using all of your bandwidth for downloading music, movies, and programs files by blocking mime types.