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Public WiFi

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by jmoody76

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How difficult is it to set up a public wifi that our visitors with laptops could connect to the internet? Does anybody have any good links that can explain how to do this or have any ideas? What equipment should I be looking at? What is the most secure way to go about it? I want to let our visitors access the internet without making to many changes to their configurations and I want to make sure our network is safe. Thanks.

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by greybeard770

All you need is an access point connected to your LAN.
Your first problem is - How does the AP identify your guests from the war drivers? You can limit access to a table of MAC address - which becomes an administrative nightmare real quick.
We use a Control Server and Access Managers from Vernier (www.verniernetworks.com) which provides authentication locally or integrated with Active Directory. If users have a wireless card with a protocol the AP supports they are in business. BUT they have to login to the Vernier system first. So we have security and availability. It works very well but it's not cheap.
Another cheaper option would be using encryption, but that requires you to give out the key to your guests - modifying their PC.
Good luck to you.

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