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Setting up public WIFI

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:12 pm
by Benjamin
Has anyone here ever setup a wireless network so all the neighbors can use it for free?

I have 2 wireless routers, a cable modem and a firewall router. The firewall supports QOS traffic management and I believe at least one of the wireless routers does as well.

What I'd like to do is set this up so that I have a private network with LAN access, and a public network without access to the LAN. I'd also like to route the public traffic though a QOS manager so that bandwidth used on the private network is higher priority traffic.

Is this possible? I have no clue how to set this up but I believe I have all the equipment I need.

Thoughts?

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 10:06 pm
by toasty2
I'm guessing you would have the modem plugged into a router. That router is the private lan. Have the firewall plugged into that and then the router. The firewall would limit the bandwidth of the router plugged in or something. So, the first one is the private, but the public is plugged into it (with the limits of the firewall between). I think that would work, but there's probably a better way.

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 12:24 pm
by Kieran Huggins
What you want is a Linksys WRT54GL and one of the linux firmwares from http://wrtrouters.com .... The DD-WRT + Hotspot firmware is likely the easiest method.

Incidentally, the 54GL is simply the best home router in existence. Period.

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 12:39 pm
by ReverendDexter
You may wish to check the legal ramifications of this before proceding. I believe that the legal climate has changed somewhat recently, and as you're effectively an endpoint, may be liable for the traffic that goes through your network.

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:08 pm
by Benjamin
I actually have the 54GS. I was going to use that for the private network and the POS Netgear for the public network. I guess I can just assign the routers local IP's. Not sure about the Netgear though. Anything I change on it randomly gets changed to something else within 2 hours. Duly noted on the legal issues.

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:15 pm
by Kieran Huggins
The GS *may* work, but you'll have to check the serial number against the list on the site I posted above. Some revisions of the GS are not compatible with 3rd party firmware.

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:56 pm
by guitarlvr
This is exactly what you are looking to do. It will also give you access to other routers as you travel since you are using this company. I got my router for free (not sure if that is still an option) but basically it allows you to setup a private lan and then allow anyone to connect to a portion of your bandwidth (which you set) for free. Then when you travel, if there are others on the network, it will let you use more bandwidth than other people using the free service. Check it out, its pretty cool.