Charon

Cash prepayment support: prospective users can now pay with either cash or a credit card, at the option of the provider. Funds are transferred direct into their mikolaj.cx account and can be used at any Charon hotspot. Real-time balance query and account transaction history for the provider are now available from the administrative Web pages. PayPal's Akamaized IP addresses are now detected and added to the firewall at every upstream reconnect, which should make Charon's credit card payments usable out of the box anywhere in the world.

Charon now supports a completely Web-based
interface for both administration and user logon
(including credit card transfers, crypto/XML
contracts, and mikolaj.cx account creation). This
requires Firefox or a similarly capable non-IE
browser, but support is included for a local
uncharged download site. Pre-built firmware images
for direct installation onto OpenWRT-compatible
routers are also provided, allowing for
establishment of a functional ISP in minutes.

On the server side, this release is ipkg-installable with all dependencies on any mipsel OpenWRT device. Documentation and examples are provided for configuration, iptables integration, and more. Basic walled garden is supplied for user education. On the client side, there is a new, small, single-file Java client (kickstart) that downloads all missing JAR dependencies from the local Java install, creates a mikolaj.cx identity, and manages the initial funds transfer through mikolaj.cc, and completes the Charon negotiation for internet access.

Initial registration now works end-to-end between a Java desktop client, the Charon gateway, and mikolaj.cx. An ipkg was built for mipsel (OpenWRT AP).