WISP Coova phpMyPrepaid

Introduction

This section contains documentation on work done regarding testing of an implementation that would make it as easy as possible for a would-be entrepreneur to deploy an ISP service over a wireless network infrastructure. The entrepreneur should be able to manage, monitor and charge users with ease.

Setup Ingredients

The tools used to setup this testbed:

• Coova WISP-in-a-box Wireless Africa wiki, URL
• phpMyPrepaid Wireless Africa wiki, URL
• FreeRADIUS
• MySQL
• Ubuntu Hardy Server - This is the distro that was used for the gateway server. In future, it is intended to have this setup (when finalized) integrated into Inveneo Hub Server Linux.

Setup Recipe

Diagram of initial WISPiab-billing setup using Coova, myPhpPrepaid.

In a nutshell

Coova

• Setup coova to act as a Chillispot-type hotspot, with auto-configuration disabled. (Setup may be tested later on with WifiDog instead of Chillispot).
• Fill in UAM Hostname, UAM Secret, NAS Identifer information.
• Fill in RADIUS server details and secret. (To be inserted into FreeRADIUS configuration on Gateway server.)

Gateway server

• Install Ubuntu Server (Hardy), with minimum MySQL, FreeRADIUS, Apache webserver.
• Install webmin. Webmin is a great tool with a web-based frontend to administer many important settings under Linux (Startup/Shutdown Scripts, DNS, DHCP, Firewall). (an apparently better alternative is ispconfig, but I've not tested this tool yet.)
• Setup DNS forwarding on gateway server, using dnsmasq. (bind9 can also be used, but dnsmasq is a much more easier option to setup for the "not-so-expert-linux" users/adminstrators).

More to follow within the next few days.