[TriLUG] Hotel style wireless

[Greg Brown]

M0n0wall is another easy solution.  Use m0n0 as your router between 
your access points and the rest of the network.  M0n0 has  a "capture 
and release portal" built in with several authentication options.  In 
addition to small-form-factor hardware M0n0 can also be installed to 
the HD of a modest system or run from CDROM (though it also requires a 
floppy disk to write the XML based conf file if running from the *live* 
CD).

Greg

On May 4, 2005, at 10:57 AM, jonc at nc.rr.com wrote:

> I'm sure there are ways to do this directly on the wireless devices, 
> but
> when I've set this up for corporations I've done it at the firewall. 
> All
> folks wanting to use the internet for basic services had to login to an
> authentication page. After that they had free or restricted use based 
> on
> their login.
>
> The firewall passed out the requests to a server cluster using Squid in
> "active" mode. Squid checked that the user was authorized and if not
> authorized displayed a local web page that asked the user to login.
>
> This worked quite well. I used a standalone password database and
> several stock users like: Library, Admin, Service, Peon, etc.... Some
> individual users were also in the database (mainly for tracking
> purposes). I believe there is now a module that allows Squid to
> authenticate users against an Active Directory.
>
> In anycase, that's one easy way to force users to login - or to see
> local Marketing (and replace web site ads with your own advertising).
>
> Jon
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steve Hoffman <srhoffman at gmail.com>
> Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2005 9:40 am
> Subject: [TriLUG] Hotel style wireless
>
>> Right now, my company has two wireless access points (a WAP11 and a
>> WRT54G), one at each end of the buildling.  We're currently doing MAC
>> filtering only, since the only ones who use the wireless are company
>> guests.  Every time one shows up they have to come to me to give me
>> their MAC so I can punch it in to both AP's and if I'm not here then
>> they have to plug into the wall (gasp).  So I was recently on a trip
>> and the hotel I stayed at had free wireless.  In order to use it, I
>> connected to the AP, surfed to ANY webpage and was taken to their
>> "login" page that asked for my room number and the code printed on my
>> key.  As soon as I did that I was able to surf the internet with no
>> problems for the duration of my stay.
>>
>> I'd like to set something similar up, perhaps only slightly less
>> sophisticated, but when someone comes here they can only get to the
>> login webpage until they provide valid credentials and then are able
>> to surf the net freely.  My problem is I don't know where to start
>> looking.  The network is about 75% linux so I'd prefer a linux based
>> solution, but if there's a better way to do it on <the OS that shall
>> remain nameless> then please pass it along also.
>>
>> Thanks for any suggestions,
>>
>> Steve
>> -- 
>> TriLUG mailing list        :
>> http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilugTriLUG Organizational
>> FAQ  : http://trilug.org/faq/
>> TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
>> TriLUG PGP Keyring         : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
>>
> -- 
> TriLUG mailing list        : 
> http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> TriLUG Organizational FAQ  : http://trilug.org/faq/
> TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
> TriLUG PGP Keyring         : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
>