User Guide

What is IronWiFi?

IronWiFi provides cloud-based RADIUS server instances and Captive Portal that allows companies to authenticate and authorize network users without having to maintain RADIUS servers. IronWiFi manages all of the technical details, from scaling the infrastructure to real-time analytics.

Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to add reliable, scalable authentication, authorization, and accounting to your network so that you can focus on building the core features of your product.

Who is IronWiFi for?

IronWiFi is for anyone that needs to authorize users before letting them use the network, whether it’s WPA2-Enterprise authentication or Captive Portal. We process millions of requests each month so that we can handle your demands regardless of volume.

How Does It Work?

RADIUS is an industry-standard protocol for providing authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA).

Authentication is the process of verifying a user’s identity and adding some extra information (characteristics) to the user’s login session.

Authorization is the process of figuring out if the user is permitted on the system and controlling network access based on defined security arrangement.

Accounting is the process of creating log files that record session information utilized for billing, usage control, and system diagnosis.

Authentication Process

During the Authentication process, typically, three components are involved:

  • Client’s device
  • Wireless Access Point (router)
  • RADIUS authentication server

radius server

  1. Client’s device sends a connection request to the Wireless Access Point
  2. The router establishes an encrypted connection to the RADIUS server using the stored Secret key
  3. The RADIUS server sends a challenge to the client’s device
  4. Client’s device responds to the challenge using a defined authentication method and stored credentials
  5. RADIUS server verifies provided information and provides a temporary session key
  6. Client’s device can now use obtained session key to communicate on the wireless network

Developers

For developers, it’s super easy to get started. To connect to our Rest API from your code, send HTTP requests to our servers and include the API token for your IronWiFi account.

 

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