Authentication Gateway Software for Wireless?

I am looking for easy manageable authentication gateway software to manage
wireless hotspots and a public LAN. The software should:
- run on Linux and/or Mac OS X.
- not rely on openwrt firmware.
- have web authentication for the users.
- have a web interface for administration and ideally accounting.
- support authentication via MySQL or RADIUS.
- not rely on DHCP.
- preferably be opensource.

I really like Chillispot, but it unfortunately has to act as DHCP server in
order to work.

thanks Mark

Mark Dammer wrote:

> I am looking for easy manageable authentication gateway software to manage
> wireless hotspots and a public LAN. The software should:
> - run on Linux and/or Mac OS X.
> - not rely on openwrt firmware.
> - have web authentication for the users.
> - have a web interface for administration and ideally accounting.
> - support authentication via MySQL or RADIUS.
> - not rely on DHCP.
> - preferably be opensource.
>
> I really like Chillispot, but it unfortunately has to act as DHCP server
> in order to work.

So what's wrong with DHCP? What's wrong with openwrt? It would be easier
to answer if we knew what your restrictions were.
--
derek

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Mark Dammer wrote:
>
>> I am looking for easy manageable authentication gateway software to manage
>> wireless hotspots and a public LAN. The software should:
>> - run on Linux and/or Mac OS X.
>> - not rely on openwrt firmware.
>> - have web authentication for the users.
>> - have a web interface for administration and ideally accounting.
>> - support authentication via MySQL or RADIUS.
>> - not rely on DHCP.
>> - preferably be opensource.
>>
>> I really like Chillispot, but it unfortunately has to act as DHCP server
>> in order to work.
>
> So what's wrong with DHCP? What's wrong with openwrt? It would be easier
> to answer if we knew what your restrictions were.

Nothing is wrong with DHCP - the problem is that we are using a lot of features
within DHCP, that Chillispot does not provide like: Hostgroups with different
options, IP-reservation by MAC, dynamic DNS updating. The main problem with
openwrt is that you are restricted to specific hardware - and here is already a
huge variety of Wireless hardware in place.

Mark Dammer wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Mark Dammer wrote:
>>
>>> I am looking for easy manageable authentication gateway software to
>>> manage wireless hotspots and a public LAN. The software should:
>>> - run on Linux and/or Mac OS X.
>>> - not rely on openwrt firmware.
>>> - have web authentication for the users.
>>> - have a web interface for administration and ideally accounting.
>>> - support authentication via MySQL or RADIUS.
>>> - not rely on DHCP.
>>> - preferably be opensource.
>>>
>>> I really like Chillispot, but it unfortunately has to act as DHCP server
>>> in order to work.
>>
>> So what's wrong with DHCP? What's wrong with openwrt? It would be
>> easier to answer if we knew what your restrictions were.
>
> Nothing is wrong with DHCP - the problem is that we are using a lot of
> features within DHCP, that Chillispot does not provide like: Hostgroups
> with different options, IP-reservation by MAC, dynamic DNS updating. The
> main problem with openwrt is that you are restricted to specific hardware
> - and here is already a huge variety of Wireless hardware in place.

That's why I thought it important we knew why you specified those
restrictions. You're not really looking for a solution that doesn't "rely
on openwrt", you want a solution that puts the authentication gateway on
another computer in your network. That's probably easier than one that
_must_ be on openwrt. openwrt is just another Linux OS, so if you've found
something that _does_ work on openwrt, you should be able to put it on its
own linux box.

How about ZoneCD? I haven't used it, but the reviews I've seen are good. I
have no idea whether it will co-exist well with your DHCP, though.

I would think that you could make Chillispot use all those DHCP features -
but it might be more work than you want to do.
--
derek

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Mark Dammer wrote:
>
>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>> Mark Dammer wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am looking for easy manageable authentication gateway software to
>>>> manage wireless hotspots and a public LAN. The software should:
>>>> - run on Linux and/or Mac OS X.
>>>> - not rely on openwrt firmware.
>>>> - have web authentication for the users.
>>>> - have a web interface for administration and ideally accounting.
>>>> - support authentication via MySQL or RADIUS.
>>>> - not rely on DHCP.
>>>> - preferably be opensource.
>>>>
>>>> I really like Chillispot, but it unfortunately has to act as DHCP server
>>>> in order to work.
>>> So what's wrong with DHCP? What's wrong with openwrt? It would be
>>> easier to answer if we knew what your restrictions were.
>> Nothing is wrong with DHCP - the problem is that we are using a lot of
>> features within DHCP, that Chillispot does not provide like: Hostgroups
>> with different options, IP-reservation by MAC, dynamic DNS updating. The
>> main problem with openwrt is that you are restricted to specific hardware
>> - and here is already a huge variety of Wireless hardware in place.
>
> That's why I thought it important we knew why you specified those
> restrictions. You're not really looking for a solution that doesn't "rely
> on openwrt", you want a solution that puts the authentication gateway on
> another computer in your network. That's probably easier than one that
> _must_ be on openwrt. openwrt is just another Linux OS, so if you've found
> something that _does_ work on openwrt, you should be able to put it on its
> own linux box.
>
> How about ZoneCD? I haven't used it, but the reviews I've seen are good. I
> have no idea whether it will co-exist well with your DHCP, though.
>
> I would think that you could make Chillispot use all those DHCP features -
> but it might be more work than you want to do.

thank you very much for your advice. I am giving ZoneCD a try. It looks
interesting: Live CD, based on Knoppix/Morphix using NoCat as the gateway
software. The only drawback is that the system uses an external server on the
internet for the authentication stuff. But as they are using a perl based NoCat
I think I may be lucky here with using perls Auth::Radius module.