How to setup free wilress access in my company
Hi All
My company have decided to change from the current WiFi Provider which charges customers to use the WiFi to a free WiFi setup which we ( aka me!) would setup and look after.
Whats the easiest way to do this does anyone know.
At the moment there are 8 wireless access points which connect to a couple of switches (just the basic config on the switches) which are then connected to a high speed broadband line.
When you access an access point you are shown a webpage which you buy credit on and off you go.
Would it be as simple as putting in our access points, patching to the switches and into the broadband modem/router then and off you go?
Are there any ways of preventing large downloads, porn etc and maybe logging without having to put a Server/PC in place or is this the only way we could do that sort of stuff.
Thanks in Advance
My company have decided to change from the current WiFi Provider which charges customers to use the WiFi to a free WiFi setup which we ( aka me!) would setup and look after.
Whats the easiest way to do this does anyone know.
At the moment there are 8 wireless access points which connect to a couple of switches (just the basic config on the switches) which are then connected to a high speed broadband line.
When you access an access point you are shown a webpage which you buy credit on and off you go.
Would it be as simple as putting in our access points, patching to the switches and into the broadband modem/router then and off you go?
Are there any ways of preventing large downloads, porn etc and maybe logging without having to put a Server/PC in place or is this the only way we could do that sort of stuff.
Thanks in Advance
ASKER
Thanks for the reply...
So in essence you are suggesting a setup like this
Access Points -> Switches -> Server Running Squid Cache -> DSL Modem -> WWW
And in the config of the access points you enter the Server IP as the Proxy IP.
If I didnt want to include the server/PC would something like this be relatively Ok too
Access Points -> Switches -> ADSL Modem/Router with Firewall Included -> WWW
Could anyone reccommend me a Modem/Router I could connect directly to the ADSL line which would also include a Firewall for me?
So in essence you are suggesting a setup like this
Access Points -> Switches -> Server Running Squid Cache -> DSL Modem -> WWW
And in the config of the access points you enter the Server IP as the Proxy IP.
If I didnt want to include the server/PC would something like this be relatively Ok too
Access Points -> Switches -> ADSL Modem/Router with Firewall Included -> WWW
Could anyone reccommend me a Modem/Router I could connect directly to the ADSL line which would also include a Firewall for me?
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ASKER
Thanks for that Uetian
The opnly problem I can see with that is for example the Checkpoint Safe@Office
This looks perfect, you can display a disclaimer, direct to a homepage, stop torrents, certain webpages and everything else but there is a yearly subscription for a lot of the services.
Something like this without the subscription would be perfect if that was possible.
Sorry for the late response, I was on holidays!!!
The opnly problem I can see with that is for example the Checkpoint Safe@Office
This looks perfect, you can display a disclaimer, direct to a homepage, stop torrents, certain webpages and everything else but there is a yearly subscription for a lot of the services.
Something like this without the subscription would be perfect if that was possible.
Sorry for the late response, I was on holidays!!!
Referring to your queries;
"When you access an access point you are shown a webpage which you buy credit on and off you go."
You can use controlap;
When you access an access point you are shown a webpage which you buy credit on and off you go.
"Are there any ways of preventing large downloads, porn etc and maybe logging without having to put a Server/PC in place or is this the only way we could do that sort of stuff."
The best way is to Implement a proxy server in between your customers and your broadband connection. The proxy server will log all ftp and http traffic. You can restrict traffic based on URLs and other match patterns. You can check the bandwidth usage as well as you can restrict bandwidth usage. Popular proxy servers are;
1- Squid Cache Server
www.squid-cache.org
2- MS ISA Server
www.microsoft.com
Personal recommendations are using Squid cache server for it being more complete product and a track record of usage by larger ISP's.