Guest wireless with time expired/single use passwords

[maniac]

Hello all,

 

As part of a network overhaul I am doing at the moment, we'd quite like to implement guest/visitor wireless access provision with time expired/single use usernames and passwords which can be issued by our receptionist. We have the Zyxel solution at one of our other sites with the little receipt printer on reception and it works brilliantly, but it is a tad pricey especially for the site I'm currently looking for a solution for which has 3 potential points of needing to issue guest access, hence requiring 3 printers.

 

I've had an idea that we can implement something ourselves for a lot less than the Zyxel solution which does a similar job.

 

The idea is to utilise the Meru system we have that has a captive portal system built in which you can authenticate against a radius server from. I need to find or try and create a product which allows the receptionist to simply click a button on their computer to generate a time limited or single use username and password on a radius server of some description, and to dump this output to a receipt printer to give to the visitor (Receipt printers can be obtained for about £45 on E-bay) I know there are products such as free radius to provide the authentication mechanism, but what I'm lacking is the means for unique usernames and passwords to be easily created and handed out by the receptionist(s) Anyone got any ideas how I can possibly achieve this? Free radius uses mySQL as a database, so is it as simple as creating a PHP script that adds an appropriate record to the database and a cron job to expire them, or is there more to it than this? (I've yet to play with free radius, it's just an idea I've had, so I've no idea how complex the database is behind it)

 

If it proves too complex I may bite the bullet and buy the Zyxel solution (money isn't really the issue) but I can't help feeling that we can do something pretty much the same with the tools we already have and get better value out of them.

 

What I don't want to do is have a bunch of generic 'visitors' usernames and passwords because they become too widely known and abused if you're not careful, they must be time limited or single use and randomly generated.

 

Thanks for your help anyone who has any ideas on this,

 

Mike.

[Net-Ctrl]

Another solution perhaps to consider is Ucopia, you would be able to do all the above with the solution and more. They currently have some great education bundles going that may work out as a cheaper solution to the Zyxel offering if you're unable to achieve the above by other means. If it was of interest i can send some more information. Best of luck with the project though

[carvjo]

of course if you used Unifi - this functionality is built-in..