[c-nsp] Wireless HotSpot solutions?

[Eric Helm]

Andre Beck wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> assume I'm rolling out a number of 123x series Access Points in a
> larger building complex to provide Internet access as a typical
> WLAN HotSpot. Is there wisdom here on what software solutions exist
> to implement the captive portal and (hopefully) alternative WPA auth
> for such an application? I haven't found a directly matching Cisco
> product, for instance. But I focus on open source / GPL solutions
> for Linux anyway. What I have found so far to look promising:
> 
> * ChilliSpot
>   A complete solution including a captive portal, WPA integration
>   and backended by RADIUS. Most problematic about that is it will
>   serve only one interface/IP network, while I'm planning to serve
>   a number of VLANs with different address ranges. According to
>   the mailing list, I might be able to run multiple chilli instances
>   in parallel. I'm currently building a lab setup to test this.
> 
> * NoCat
>   NoCatAuth/NoCatSplash seem to be building blocks of a number of
>   HotSpot solution frameworks. I have no experience with them yet,
>   it seems they focus on the captive portal aspect only while leaving
>   other issues to external components.
> 
> I'm open to all kinds of recommendations, preferable to free solutions
> running on Linux, but also any other one including commercial and
> hardware based systems. Maybe the new lightweight operation mode of the
> APs in conjunction with a central wireless controller already provides
> all that is necessary to build an authenticated UAM+WPA hotspot
> solution? We are currently deploying autonomous APs but upgrading would
> still be an option for the final solution.
> 
> TIA,
> Andre.

Check out the Cisco Building Broadband Manager:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/netmgtsw/ps533/index.html

Also, Mikrotik has a decent hotspot solution:
http://www.mikrotik.com/

I don't know if either of these products support WPA.

/Eric