Meraki via Smoothwall Express 3.0

[sahilkhan]

Hi,

We are a secondary school and are going ahead with meraki wireless solution ,we are looking to give student guest access to the wireless network, we have RM Smartcache proxy on site, as on the meraki there is now option to point it through our smartcache proxy, from what i have searched around , our option is smoothwall express, i have installed smoothwall on one of the VM hosts , and that's about it,

i have no idea how to setup the transparent proxy so that meraki would go through to internet via the smoothwall, ( i will be able to get a standalone box for the smoothwall)

any help with the setup would be really appreciated

 

thanks

[sahilkhan]

any ideas ?

[AngryTechnician]

First you need to set up the Smoothwall Express to work in transparent mode via the config pages, then you need to set the green interface IP of the Smoothwall as the default gateway on every device you want to go through it. If you're just sending the Meraki through it, you only need to change the default gateway for the APs and can leave the rest of your network alone.

 

My advice would be to make DHCP reservations for each AP and then configure the default gateway on each reservation. It's DHCP option 003 (labelled Router on Windows DHCP servers). If you are using VLANs you can also do it on the DHCP scope for that VLAN.

[glennda]

Meraki Wireless does not communicate to the cloud controllers via HTTP or HTTPS. You need to have additional specific ports opened outbound to specific addresses.

 

The ports are available here but may vary depending on your setup. https://dashboard.meraki.com/manage/support/firewall_configuration You will be required to login using your cloud controller account.

 

With regards to directing the students - If you setup the Meraki SSID using NAt mode it will use its own DHCP and seperate them from the LAN network. Under the firewall options you need to setup a policy to Deny access from the wireless clients to the Local LAN.

 

 

You can then leave the access points on DHCP on the normal network and also create an SSID for school devices which are completely seperate from the network without the need to Vlans (Meraki AP only allows clients from the open SSID to the default gateway no where else).

 

You can also traffic shape and limit the bandwidith the students can use to the Internet so they can't waste all the internet feed.

Edited August 28, 2012 by glennda

[AngryTechnician]

Meraki Wireless does not communicate to the cloud controllers via HTTP or HTTPS.

 

That is the exact opposite of what a Meraki engineer told me. It uses other ports as well, but it does use port 80 and 443 as referenced on the document you linked - what is it using them for if not HTTP and HTTPS?

[glennda]

That is the exact opposite of what a Meraki engineer told me. It uses other ports as well, but it does use port 80 and 443 as referenced on the document you linked - what is it using them for if not HTTP and HTTPS?

 

Sorry - I meant does not communicate only via HTTP and HTTPS - my mistake. It does use 80 and 443 as well others mentioned.

[coulter]

Adding onto this thread, does anyone have smoothwall (Guardian 3) working with Meraki AP's for Guest/Staff/Student access?

 

I've setup an SSID for guests in NAT mode and configured a splash page. However the internet was working for around 1 hour but then it requires proxy access. Smoothwall dialed in and configured a transparent proxy but this now doesn't give the guest user the 'Splash Page' nor does any traffic shaping, firewire configuration work on the device.

 

In a nutshell, the internet and some apps work fine but no Meraki config we have setup seem to work on this.

 

Anyone shed some light into what my problem could be, Smoothwall are taking too long to get back to me.

 

Cheers in advanced!

[glennda]

So are you trying to use the Meraki Splash page?

[coulter]

Yes we are especially for guests/visitors onto our network

[sahilkhan]

Yes we are especially for guests/visitors onto our network

hi lee is your issue resolved now with meraki and smoothwall ? as i am looking into introduce smoothwall to our meraki enviroment

[Gaz]

hi lee is your issue resolved now with meraki and smoothwall ? as i am looking into introduce smoothwall to our meraki enviroment

 

What exactly are you wanting to do? I can't help with Smoothwall Express but can maybe offer some help on the commercial Smoothwall.