Suggestion on an Access Point?

[LuckyTaxi]

We're looking to implement wireless in a couple areas of our school. Mainly the cafeteria and library.
I'm looking at Proxim, but wondering if a DLINK will suffice. I have one at home and it runs fine, but we're talking about more users and a bigger area.

 

[AFB]

How many & how big ?

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
How many & how big ?

I think one in each area should suffice.
I gotta figure out how big the library is, but I think one AP might work in this area.

As for the cafeteria, it's pretty big considering we have an extension to the outside. Maybe one should work? I dont know the range of some of the higher ends one, but the one I found (by Proxim) is pretty expensive and one would hope it serves a big area.

 

[AFB]

Well, this is D-Link's high end stuff. It is a GOOD amount more than the consumer gear.

 

[watts3000]

Dude if you can get Proxim or Cisco do your setup right the firsst time. What type of security do you plain on setting up for this wireless lan?

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: watts3000
Dude if you can get Proxim or Cisco do your setup right the firsst time. What type of security do you plain on setting up for this wireless lan?

I agree, the cheapest D-Link AP there was $250. They went up to $2500.

 

[watts3000]

The reason I asked about security is because I did some wireless test with a linksys wap54g access point. The documentation states that it can do wpa radius, but from my experience it can't perform this task. I used a windows 2003 IAS server and a windows 2003 certificate server. I was running peap everything on the server side was fine but the clients were always dropping there connections , but if I went back to regular wep everything worked fine. Needless to say our wireless project is on hold here at work we put in a request for a much larger budget we are looking at the proxim and cisco ap's.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

maybe WEP and then only grant access to registered laptops who's MAC i know about?

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: lilcam
maybe WEP and then only grant access to registered laptops who's MAC i know about?

Get cracked in a day or 2.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: lilcam
maybe WEP and then only grant access to registered laptops who's MAC i know about?

Get cracked in a day or 2.

suggestons?

 

[choby]

DHCP wireless users with non-routed IP.
Install client VPN on all laptops wanting to gain wireless access.
Configure VPN consentrator/router with two interfaces (1 on priv network, 1 on prod network)
VPN users in to grab real IP from prod network.
Use a good authentication protocol for VPN verification.

I think this will work.

A good tip would be to put a web server on the priv network so that a new user has 1 place to visit (before VPN auth) which will hold information on registration and would containthe install file for download of the vpn client.


extra tip: dont allow routing/NAT between the priv and prod network or the whole idea is moot. only allow the tunnel into the prod network. once the user has obtained a prod IP it wil be able to hit the Internet.