Wi5stars-Software Version 10.0
Release Notes
Software Version 10.0

Introduction

We are proud to announce a new software version for your Wi5stars. This update brings important improvements to your platform.

These release notes accompany the Wi5stars Software Release 10.0.

Family DNS

Wi5stars Version 10 offers the Family DNS.
The Family DNS service allows you to:

  • resolve domain names very quickly;
  • obtain statistics on the most used domains for each gateway;
  • enable the use of many blacklists at gateway level or for individual PPPoE user.

Storing DNS resolutions collected as temporary data makes it so that the next time you want to visit the same site, it will simply send back the IP address match obtained before in a prompt way.

Wi5stars with Family DNS on board

Whether you are working with cruises, cargo ships or oil rigs that often have to deal with high latency and slow connection, Family DNS will play a crucial job. It significantly reduces the response time thank to the content it stores locally.

Reduce distractions in offices and schools

There are a lot of distractions in modern offices, costing valuable working hours every day.
Businesses should consider blocking the not-suitable-for-work websites on their employees’ work devices, such as online shopping, gaming, gambling, dating, sports and streaming websites, etc.
In addition to increasing productivity or protecting students from inappropriate content, restricting users’ internet access can protect users from dangerous websites that may contain malware, phishing, warez, cryptojacking, DDoS, dialer, etc

Protect your hotspot guests and families across all devices!

Protect your hotspot guests and families across all devices! Make your guests browse the Internet safely without inappropriate content.
Wi5stars will block websites that contain contents you’ve flagged in the settings.
35 blacklists of domains that are updated every day while you sleep. Besides, you can edit add-on domains, customising the list.
This feature is available at the gateway level and at individual users (PPPoE-only).

In the MikroTik-type gateways, we use a procedure that forces coveying all DNS queries to the Family DNS, even on highly reliable systems, regardless of the DNS configured on the users’ devices.

Now you are able to choose what websites aren’t available to your users, and you can decide to censure certain websites or leave the Internet completely open.

Dashboard to monitor the Family DNS

At the gateway level, you can check the queries to the DNS, responding time and cache size during the last 24 hours.

Radius

We rewrote a part of the radius to optimize and improve the management of the data in the database.
Besides, we rewrote the part of the radius that involves accounting to improve performance and expand functionalities.
Rewriting the radius allowed the system to update users immediately when changing a Product Policy.

Heatmaps

Heatmap lets you know your customer’s engagement in each area and their interests: shopping mall areas, locations of interest, advertisements, etc.
Heatmaps help you deeply understand your customers’ interests and behaviour. Get rich data about your customers, improve their experience & maximize profit.

Statistics and details

With version 10, the system can detect WiFi connection data even for each access point. As a result, you will get statistics on:

  • Number of Users/Devices Connected
  • Traffic Developed
  • Number of the Sessions
  • Duration of the Sessions

In the context menu of a Zone, we added the “Heatmap WiFi” option, allowing you to view a heatmap of the WiFi equipment (Gateway with WiFi and access point) by:

  • Number of the Sessions
  • Current Connected Devices
  • Traffic of the Sessions
  • Duration of the Sessions

We added the following columns to the list of access points:

  • Connected Users;
  • Connected Devices.

Besides, to obtain more details, we added the “Data Management Tool” option to the context menu of the zones and access points.

In the “Data Management Tool” at the domain, gateway, user, zone and access point level, we added a panel that allows filtering and exporting the “Log of User WiFi Connections” to an Excel file.

AP Dashboard

The access point dashboards have been enriched with the following tiles:

  • Users;
  • Device;
  • Connections;
  • Traffic.

The main graph of the access point dashboards enriched with:

  • Average Session Time (in minutes);
  • Hours of Connection;
  • Number of Connections;
  • Weekly Connections;
  • Peak Daily Connections on Hourly Basis;
  • Download and Upload; Average Download and Upload per Device;
  • Average Download and Upload per User;
  • Concurrent Users and Devices (Last 24 hours);
  • Unique Connected Users.

Users

We added the “Locate the User on the WiFi Heatmap” option in the user’s context menu.
You can search and view the heatmap with the gateways and access points where the users made the last WiFi connection and locate them.
This feature is also helpful in finding the staff in a company, doctors or/and patients in a hospital, etc.
The new option “Log of User WiFi Connections” is now available in the user’s context menu.
It shows the details of the connections to the various access points.

Subscription renewal process for PPPoE users (residentials)

You can allow PPPoE users, commonly known as residentials, to pay their subscription renewals or outstanding online by using the Welcome Portal add-on functionality (with MikroTik-type NAS only).
The subscription will be extended from the date the payment is made.

The automatisms include:

  • redirecting HTTP requests to a page inviting the user to pay;
  • temporary unblocking of the connection for the duration of the payment;
  • unblocking the internet connection upon completion of the settlement.

Surveys, quizzes and tests

Exporting add-on tools

With version 10, you can export the surveys to a file and import them from a file. This tool is very advantageous if you have many Wi5stars installed at the customers’. You create a survey, and you can export and import it into other Wi5stars platforms.
We added an option that allows you to choose whether or not to group the values of multiple answers in a single field. It also adds the score to create a much more compact and readable Excel file.

Besides, we added a field with the following consent given by the users:

Backend Improvements

HTTP 2

Now the platform supports HTTP 2, the major version of the HTTP protocol used by the World Wide Web, boosting performance.

Syslog permissions for system users

For each system user, you can now define the permission to activate the internal Syslog in the gateways.

Auto updates and configurations

From the context menu of gateways and access points, an option to open the admin interface via the web is now available. It is accessible for all vendors and not only for-MikroTik devices as before.

Specific to MikroTik

We optimized the automatic update script of IP radius and DNS on MikroTik. If the configuration had not been changed, now it does nothing, while before, it was constantly reconfiguring every five minutes.
With version 10, you can update the scripts of your MikroTik-type access points automatically.
We improved the scripts on MikroTik-type gateways and access points. Installing the update will cause an automatic update.
We changed the automatic script update of the IP Binding for MikroTik. Now they are updated when needed only.
Besides, we improved the PPPoE configuration scripts for MikroTik.