[svlug] Advice wanted regarding setting up WiFi

[Sameer Verma]

William R Ward wrote:

>[snip..]
>So I see two options:
> 1) Add a new firewall box between the cable modem and the WiFi
>station, and then our existing firewall between that and the wired
>computers.
> 2) Add a second ethernet port to our Linux server and connect the
>WiFi to that, and use Linux's built-in firewall to control access.
>
>Either way, I would also want to set up something to provide
>authentication (NoCatAuth?) so only authorized users can use it.
>
>  
>
If you run nocatauth, you can do the firewall stuff in it, as nocat is 
mostly a iptables based conditional firewall. You can add your rules to 
it. You could run it in open mode (asks the user to agree to an 
acceptable use policy before continuing) or in captive mode, where they 
users will need an account (just like t-mobile's hotspots). The traffic 
is still unencrypted (nocat doesn't encrypt anything by itself), but you 
could always add on the extra WEP +MAC solution. Let me know if you have 
more Nocat questions...we've been doing it for a while.

>I have very little spare time to mess with this, so I want something
>that can be set up easily.  I also don't have the budget to be buying
>a lot of hardware.
>
>  
>
You could probably get away with an old laptop + two pcmcia ethernet 
cards (Craigslist?). That's what I run at home.

>With these constraints in mind, what's the best solution?
>
>--Bill.
>
>  
>
Sameer

--
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/