Ok, so my other very popular thread was for the single purpose of trying to find a way to track Internet use only by MAC address. Tough stuff, on purpose, it gave me 10 times the information I would have received than putting an easy thread. Really made some smart people think. Thanks.
The problem in this thread (same general problem) should be much easier to solve.
In the other thread Steve wrote:
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When I first arrived in the dorms 2 years ago, the first time I connected my laptop, I was presented with a login screen with the disclaimer, etc. that required I login with my University e-mail account and password. Once this was done, my MAC address was mapped to my username for all access. Same thing happened when I connected a wireless router and when I replaced my laptop mobo.
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Also there is a very good example of this actually being used. See the website: http://wireless.boisestate.edu/instructions.html
That system applies to both their wired and wireless student clients.
Actually, that is my alma mater. I’ve tried calling up a few of my old profs from the computer science/networking department, but no luck so far, haven’t reached them.
Between the post Steve made, the instruction page at the Boise State website and other general networking experience, I’ve put together a little presentation of how I think it works, and would like some input on solutions that would allow me to do this, prepare for pictures!
This picture shows my network plan:
http://i5.tinypic.com/14bmf84.png
For the purposes of this discussion, we aren’t worried about the Admin VLAN or the Gateway, lets just limit things to the Student VLAN.
http://i6.tinypic.com/14bmdl4.png
There. Now that that pesky admin side is out of things, we can get a better view of things. Oh and ignore that content filter for now.
1.Student owned machines that want to connect.
2.Authentication server
3.Active Directory server
4.Internet.
Think of it this way:
http://i5.tinypic.com/14bmafd.png
So the solution would ideally integrate with AD so I only store one database of student logins for both network and email.
Any ideas folks?
Ideally no software has to be installed on the student machine, although an authentication server that scans to see if they have AntiVirus, and then denies/permits access on that basis as well is A-okay (With academic liscensing we can give them AntiVirus software)