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Ask Slashdot: Setting Up a Wireless Catch-and-Release
First time accepted submitter SSG Booraem writes "I'm on the IT committee at my church. We've recently added wireless access points to our Family Life Center, but the committee chair isn't comfortable with allowing unrestricted access to our network. We host a lot of guests during the week for Upwards basketball practices and on Saturdays for games, so we want to restrict internet access to the Sunday school classes held in that building. Unfortunately, neither he, nor I, know anything about setting up a wireless catch-and-release like in hotels. If anyone could point me at good documentation, I would be very grateful."
Honestly, just use something like open-mesh, it has all the software available to do just that without too much hassle. Additionally they're more easily spaced throughout the building with less interference than you would normally get.
You're trying to set up one of those hotel style "Welcome to our network give us all your money to see the internet" pages to let only your sunday school students reach the internet? Or are you trying to block the guests off your network complete? Since this is tagged as wireless why not just use WPA2 and set up your students, classes, or whatever with access?
Not sure what the point of one of those hotel pages is here.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
If the access point is only meant to be used by the Sunday school, and they only meet at certain times. why not just switch the AP off when the Sunday School meeting isn't running?
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Try a google search for "Captive WiFi Portal".
That's the term you want. Get yourself a DD-WRT compatible router and install one of these packages: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Captive_Portal
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
It's called a captive portal, and it's not the solution you're looking for. Depending on AP it'll be easier to setup time of day access or only give the WPA2 passpoem to churchgoers.
Seems like you could just set a password and post it somewhere in a room that is not accessible to guests. Change the password every week.
Restrict the wireless router's use to Sunday mornings during class. Don't operate it during the week.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Who knew such unabashed idiocy and bigotry would exist on slashdot? He's asking a tech question for a NPO and you retort with such drivel?
At my church we have a pretty simple policy: the network is protected with WPA2 encryption, it has an easy-to-remember password, and we give it to everyone who needs it. Make sure staff knows not to tell the password to your basketball guests, etc. We change the password about once a year, and let the new password spread organically. It works pretty well. People in the congregation ask each other for the password (or more likely, ask someone whom they know is on the tech-savvy side) and so those who need it are able to get back on. Another thing that you can do is give the network an essid name like "Sunday School Only" -- that will make your guests less likely to try to gain access, and also the Sunday School patrons will know that they should feel free to ask for the password.
Hi, latest BSD mag 1/12 has this article Home Brew Captive Portal With OpenBSD:
Have you ever used a public wireless network that has a splash screen such that you have to agree to certain terms before going to the Internet? The author of this article will show you step by step how to build one of those using OpenBSD’s Packet Filter (pf).
Another option is to use a Captive Portal built into a routing device.
If you can throw together a machine with two NIC or some wireless cards, the software side can be handled with ZeroShell, or if you prefer a paid support contract, the previously open source Untangle
Captive Portal requires registration with a username/password to use the wifi, and can perform metering for if you wish to charge or just limit time. You can also setup different sets of web filters or firewall rules that change on a set schedule.
The Web Filtering modules will likely make your committee chair happy, as you can easily block most categories like pornography, gambling, hacking, etc.
It isn't impossible to get around of course, but should be enough for due diligence.
Good luck!
This thread makes me embarrassed to be an atheist...
Yup, the amount of atheist bigotry and unpleasantness here is incredible. Now in their defense, these people are probably Americans who endure a lot of religious bigotry in their daily lives. They are just trying to fight back, but this doesn't really help at all.
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
Seriously? Just because some religious people behave like dicks to people of different beliefs to them doesn't mean that you have to join in. He asked a technical question, the fact that it's related to a church is irrelevant.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Forwarding from superuser.com:
http://superuser.com/questions/183105/hotel-like-wifi-manager (recommends AnchorFree, SputNik)
http://www.macinstruct.com/node/188
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I sure agree with you, it hurts to see how a good place to exchange information is slowly dying and becoming less and less worth our attention.
Yes, that happened ever since "I'm too lazy to Google it and perform basic research" turned into the exact same thing as "I really need a community of experts to offer me advice".
... but you know what the REAL difference is? If you really need a community of experts to offer advice it's because you are doing something new and interesting and unique. If you're doing what every hotel and coffee-shop across the country already does on a daily basis ... then it's time to stop being lazy and research it yourself.
Not that Slashdot does anything but try to shut you up with a downmod for pointing it out
goto www.pfsense.org Pfsense is all you need for this and every other firewall / router / captive portal / ... project
and it's opensource with optional paid support if required
Untangle (http://www.untangle.com/Lite-Package the lite package which i think is still free) is what I implemented at my work guest network and implementing at my Church's guest network. Initially we deployed this with the captive portal at my work, we have some policy requirements that require logon and captive portal checks that compliance checkbox.
For Church we will only be using the transparent proxy features to blacklist or whitelist websites. It keeps it simple, which translates that I don't have to manage it all the time (which i am sure having time to do this is a problem for you as well).
For the comittee that is concerned about the internet access, give them access to the Untangle webpage so they can see the reports of what sites are being blocked and what is getting the most usage. This should help them be more comfortable that this is being used for good.
I would also recommend using access points that support multiple VLANs and SSIDs. This avoids placing extra WAP's just for guest and allows you to keep your guest SSID separated away from the church's systems (you will have to configure your firewall, we place the guest VLAN in a simple DMZ) that may have financial information or member on them.
Posting up here, because it's quite a bit of scrolling before you see answers that don't have something to do with peoples anti-religion bigotry. I do not care what your beliefs are, nor do I think it's my place to comment on them when replying to a technical question.
Why don't you set up a guest wifi? Have the internal wifi that's for your private network, and a guest wifi where you publish the key for people to use, but set up a rule so it's only enabled on Sunday from 7am until 1pm? That should cover the Sunday school's hours, and it won't be there at all during the week, when you don't want people accessing the wifi. It will also segregate your internal network from the wifi you're providing for people to use, which will help secure your private files, or any fileserver you're running.
And if you're hosting some kind of event, like a Parish council meeting, where you want to give people access to the 'net, just turn the guest wifi on manually during the event.
It'll be cheaper, and easier than setting up a catch-and-release system, as a fair number of wireless routers have that ability these days, and if it doesn't, you could always install Tomato or DD-WRT to have access to it.