I need a little advice from the smart people here. I have a few projects happening at the moment and I thought I'd try here for some help.

I'm helping a friend with a wireless setup and he emailed me with what they want to happen at their location:

My client is a local community college training facility with two campuses. Upper & Lower. The two campuses are approximately a mile from each other and during 2006 I installed a wireless network at the upper campus. Prior to the wireless network, there was no internet access available at this location. I have about 5 Cisco access points providing “blanket” coverage to this campus. We generally experience about 5-20 users accessing the network at any one time but it is possible to have over 30. As mentioned there is no wired lan at this location, so the only reason the users (students) access this network is to get on the internet.

My client would like to set-up the following scenario: When users (or new users) access the wireless network (currently there is no password authentication) they would be redirected automatically to a web page with some information about the campus where they are. This information will include such things as: upcoming events, field trips, class schedules, cafeteria information, contact info, etc. We are not sure if users will be required to enter a userid & password to get on the network – or if we’ll leave it open for the time being.

Because all users on this network will be redirected to a web page, this will allow the administration to provide updated information regularly. We would like to have a fairly simple method of allowing some of the office staff to update this web page on a regular basis (Weekly).

As mentioned, since there was no LAN prior to the wireless network, the only equipment there is a PPPOE modem, Linksys RV042 router, Cisco access points and a couple of switches. I do have access to a used PC (P4 512MB, etc) that may be useful for this project. I can give you the specifics on the Cisco Access Points if required.

Any thoughts? Anybody involved with such a setup? About the biggest challenge I can see is setting up a website that the administration can update and keep looking good.


Thanks!
Rene

It occurs to me that the cisco wireless routers, or the linksys wired router, might have that very feature already built into their firmware. Something that redirects someone to a preset web page the first time they connect. Have a peek through the documentation of those devices and see if it's possible. You might be able to do this without leaving your desk!

Is that a feature of Tomato by any chance? Can you put Tomato on the Linksys router?

I found the userguide for the router at the Linksys website and there doesn't seem to be any mention of the option in that. I'm waiting to get the cisco model numbers to find out if they support it.

Thanks for the idea!

Rene

Try ChilliSpot. It worked pretty well when I made a hotspot for a friend.

Just thought I'd update this thread in case anyone else is interested. I made it work with a Linksys WRT54GL and aftermarket firmware.

I used DD-WRT NOKAID version http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads...kaid_wrt54g.bin and setup NoCatSplash as described at http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php?title=NoCatSplash

Rene