OTP

Background

• A One Time Password or OTP is a common method used for user verification.
• A user will typically provide a mobile number or email address.
• The system will then send a code to the mobile number using SMS or to the email address using an email.
• This code will be used by the user to validate itself to the system.
• As for February 2023 RADIUSdesk includes support for OTP verification for Captive Portal (Hotspot) users.
• We support the following ways to send the OTP:
  • SMS
  • Email
• We support OTP with:
  • Permanent User Registration
  • Click-To-Connet
• The rest of this page will discuss the configuration and technical detail of the OTP functionality.

Enable System To Send OTPs

• In order for RADIUSdesk to send an OTP you have to configure the system to be able to send the OTP using email or SMS.
• RADIUSdesk allows for you to configure a system wide configuration but it also allows you to define per cloud settings which will take preference over the system wide settings.
• See the following screenshot for the email configuration:

• We support Sendgrid and normal SMTP as a transport for the email.
• After you specified the config press Save.
• After you saved the configuration you can test it by clicking the Test Email Settings button.
• You can also view the history of all the emails that the system sent out using this particular configuration by clicking the Show Sent History button.
• See the following screenshot for the SMS configuration.

• Most SMS providers has an API that you use to send SMSs.
• RADIUSdesk allows you to specify two SMS Providers. Both can be active however the system will only use the first active one it finds.
• As with the email settings you are also able to test the SMS Settings after configuration.
• You can also view the history of all the SMSs that the system sent out using that particular configuration by clicking the Show Sent History button.

OTP For User Registration

• The above screenshot should be mostly self explanatory.
• There is however one important point that should be mentioned on using Email for OTP.
• We sit with a bit of a chicken and egg situation since the person will need Internet access to get to their email to retrieve the OTP.
• We will thus provide them temporary Internet access for this action.
• This is what the Temp login user is for.
• You are advised to create a dedicated user with a special profile for this purpose.
• The profile should be
  • Time limited. e.g. Session-Timeout should be 360 seconds (5minutes)
  • The bandwidth should be limited.
• This will allow for the user that registers to retrieve the OTP from their email but not much beyond that in terms of Internet connection.
• The email with the OTP will also contain a link which the user can click to confirm the OTP to the system.
• This makes is easy if the WebView with the Captive Portal Login Page closed while the user retrieved the OTP from their email.

OTP For Click To Connect

• With OTP for Click To Connect there are one of two options.
• If you select the email option for the OTP, again you have to provide temporary Internet access to the user as with User Registration above.
• If you select SMS option (the user's mobile number) you don't need to provide anything since the OTP will be delivered as an SMS.
• We also again added a link in the email for the user to conveniently confirm the OTP by clicking on the link.

Some Technical Items

Expiry of the OTP

• The current expiry time for an OTP is two minutes.
• This can be adjusted by editing /var/www/html/cake4/rd_cake/src/Controller/RegisterUsersController.php and /var/www/html/cake4/rd_cake/src/Controller/DataCollectortsController.php files.
• Look for this line and adjust acordingly.

protected $valid_minutes = 2; //The time that an OTP will be valid (in minutes)

• For the verification through the Email link we expire the OTP after $valid_minutes times two. (4minutes)

Disconnecting Temp Connection

• The URL link in the email will cause a redirect to a special CoovaChilli URL that will log the user out (http://1.0.0.0).
• For this to happen the user should be connected to the Captive Portal so that this URL can log them out.

if($otp == $q_r->value){
    $success = true;
    $this->{'PermanentUserOtps'}->patchEntity($q_r, ['status' => 'otp_confirmed']);
    $this->{'PermanentUserOtps'}->save($q_r);
    $user_id = $q_r->permanent_user_id;
    $q_pu = $this->{'PermanentUsers'}->find()->where(['PermanentUsers.id' =>$user_id])->first();
        if($q_pu){
		$this->{'PermanentUsers'}->patchEntity($q_pu, ['active' => 1]);
		$this->{'PermanentUsers'}->save($q_pu);
	} 								
	$this->response = $this->response->withHeader('Location', "http://1.0.0.0");      			
        return $this->response;
 
}else{