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I suggest checking this out. I've used it for a few clients. http://www.publicip.net/

That's funny, a 1 second search on google gives you http://www.publicip.net/
Maybe the operator needs to wise up. Or perhaps the WiFi sharing was proprietary stuff that needed XP anyway. Who can say ?
And why ditch FreeBSD, if it worked without a hitch ?
Someones got issues ...

Here is one free open source solution

Guess it's time to get familiar with the Zone CD.

http://www.publicip.net/

Try this.

Check out the features and see if that's what you're looking for. It's free!

Try this.

Check out the features and see if that's what you're looking for. It's free!

I've read about Public IP before: http://www.publicip.net/ Perhaps it will give you the solution you're looking for.

http://www.publicip.net/

Check out Zone CD. It works great for small shops. I set up an old PII box for a local shop. All you need is a computer, CD-Drive, two NICs, and an access point. It's great. Did I mention it's FOSS?

F/OSS solution for metered hotspots:

http://www.publicip.net/

Very cool.

The Zone CD seems to offer easy setup and admin for a free public access point. I'm wondering if there is a similiar product that would let the owner introduce random and variable jitter and lag into the AP such that gaming would be annoying but ordinary web surfing would be no problem. That discourage one class of high maintenance, low spending freeloaders. Maybe not?

Using a commodity PC, and the software provided free by ZoneCD http://www.publicip.net/, I was able to setup a public Wifi Hotspot in about 30 minutes. Super easy, and gives you granular access levels to grant people different types of access (i.e. Super User, Average Joe, etc.). You can track user logins, and other usage stats via a webpage as well. It sure pissed off my wife to have to log in everytime though!

Can be tailored to almost any need, and is open source. Is very flexible.

Requirements:

• Just about any old or new PC with 2 NICs
• A plain vanilla router on one NIC to connect to your provider (linksys, netgear etc...)
• A Wi-fi AP or a regular hub on the the other NIC to connect clients

If you need to buy a PC, any old refurb or a cheapo PC can be had for under 300$.

With just a tiny bit of tinkering, you can modify it to make your Access point require a purchase (a coffee for 2 hours access?) --VISION, Enjoy

Nomadix is probably the leader in this space. Their products are good, fast, and relatively cheap considering the functionality and low maintenance requirements. For small sites there is the wireless gateway and for larger ones (up to 200 concurrent users) there is the HotSpot gateway. You can review the products and feature list here

Briefly looking over the M0n0wall website, it appears to be just a firewall rather than a wireless hotspot solution. Did I miss a feature or did you fail to post all of the configuration modifications that you had to make in order to turn M0n0wall and FreeRADIUS into a captive portal?

I'm not trying to be offensive but, how is M0n0wall better than the likes of ZoneCD or NoCat Auth? I understand that 'you' found NoCat complicated as compared to M0n0wall but, is that an accurate assessment or is it simply your situation because of your preference to BSD?

• Customize ZoneCD login pages
• Choose to use a branded template
• Create multiple zones from same login
• Zones can be Public, Shared or Private
• Separate permissions for your Zone logins.
• Configure web registration
• User authentication and management
• Homepage redirection
• Daily time limits per user
• Daily download limits
• Zone open and close times
• Block by mac address
• Configure user permissions(Classes)
• Customize firewall rules for each Class
• Content Filtering (block porn, downloads, etc.)
• Daily Log Mailer program
• Block traffic to *wired* network
• Branded "Terms of Use" template or use your own
• Usage statistics
• Multilingual login pages
• End-User reporting

Have you looked into PublicIP? It's easy to set up and runs off a live distro.

not an appliance, but a Live CD: ZoneCD

I agree with a post above - businesses will offer wifi just as they offer bathrooms and air conditioning to their customers.

Very true. I just set up a free wifi system for a sports bar & grill that I work for. I used a Linksys access point, a 1 gigahz junk PC, a couple of random ethernet cards and the ZoneCD from the PublicIP project. Set it up and got everything configured in an evening. Works great, no hard disk needed, the access is personalized with the bar's logo.

It would cost them more than they could expect to make to try to set up a commercial access point. But by letting a handful of customers piggyback on the DSL connection, they are able to keep people there for a little bit longer, eating and drinking. They asked me about it when a group of eight people came in and asked if they had internet access a couple of weeks back. Few things pain a resturaunt owner more than telling someone "no" and having them walk out the door looking for another place. That one group's business could have covered the entire cost of the system.