Portal system using the local portal server

In addition to using a separate device as the portal server, a portal system can also use the local portal server function of the access device to authenticate web users directly. In this case, the portal system consists of only three components: authentication client, access device, and authentication/accounting server, as shown in Figure 37.

No security policy server is needed for local portal service, because the portal system using the local portal server does not support extended portal functions.

The local portal server function of the access device implements only some simple portal server functions. It only allows users to log on and log off through the web interface. It cannot take the place of an independent portal server.

HTTP and HTTPS can be used for interaction between an authentication client and an access device providing the local portal server function. If HTTP is used, there are potential security problems because HTTP packets are transferred in plain text. If HTTPS is used, secure data transmission is ensured because HTTPS packets are transferred in cipher text based on SSL.

The local portal server function allows you to customize authentication pages. You can customize authentication pages by editing the corresponding HTML files and then compress and save the files to the storage medium of the device. A set of customized authentication pages consists of six authentication pages: the logon page, the logon success page, the online page, the logoff success page, the logon failure page, and the system busy page. A local portal server pushes a corresponding authentication page at each authentication phase. If you do not customize the authentication pages, the local portal server pushes the default authentication pages. For information about authentication page customization rules, see "Customizing authentication pages."