Topic: New Challenge: Small Wi-Fi ISP = Authentication + bandwidth

[Franco]

I've taken the challenge to implement security for a small wireless ISP and would love to hear what the community has to say, and hopefully point me to the right direction.
Things that need to be done:
1-Implement an authentication method such as PPoE, so no unwanted access is allowed. I've searched the forums for PPoE Server/Authenticator and found nothing. I believe this is done thru a Radius Server (???).
On the Net I found this excellent How-To: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/8021X-HOWTO/
and it's where I'm working at the moment. Of course if anyone has better ideas, please comment.

2-Few of the clients will be getting public IP's and for that I'll be using the Nat 1 on 1 contrib.

3-Bandwith limitations: I found a lot topics on CBQ, including a contrib. I've tried but it only implements control over the protocol/port and not the IP. This is a nice idea from 5.6, but it does not give me a panel:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031221162131/http://www.lightningconnect.net/bridge-howto/SME56withbridge.html

4-Multiple WAN: For this one I may end up getting the linksys RV016. The idea is to load balance among multiple sources. I couldn't find nothing that would allow me to do such thing, at least not with SME.

Any hints, examples, anything that may help is welcome. I'll keep posting as the project goes, I'm sure others may have come accross such installs.
Thanks,

[duncan]

My suggestion - Forget SME - far too much effort involved.

Go with m0n0wall or for a full featured solution Mikrotik.

[Franco]

Thanks for the reply Duncan, as usual your comments are excellent! I took a look at Mikrotic and that seems to be perfect for the job. Will do!

Thanks,

[cc_skavenger]

4-Multiple WAN: For this one I may end up getting the linksys RV016. The idea is to load balance among multiple sources. I couldn't find nothing that would allow me to do such thing, at least not with SME.

Hope you have better luck with these.  Our company used to use 3 - ISBPRO-800s, they sucked.  They would randomly lockup.  Worked with the company and upgraded firmware probably a dozen times.  They are the most expensive set of book ends I have ever seen ($399 each).

[Franco]

So far Mikrotik seems to be perfect for the job as it allows multiple WAN routes using: from their site

More than one gateway for one destination network may be used. This approach is called 'Equal-Cost Multi-Path Routing' and is used for load balancing (Note that this does not provide failover).

This way I only need to invest and learn once