I'm looking for software for a customer which runs a little hotel. They installed WLAN which is accessible from each room, and I need billing/admin software for that.
It should be possible to define eg. WEP-keys for each room, detect online time (maybe also data-capacity), similar to a phone system.
Anyone can recommend good (maybe even free) software for that purpose?
Here is one for you that you can consider. And also, you might not find anything Legit AND free for internet coffee that provided billable internet access ;)
Easyhotspot is software based on the Ubuntu OS that's meant for running a hotspot. However, I think it'll suit your purpose wonderfully. Users connect to the WLAN and login using credentials. It can be limited by bandwidth, usage and time limits. It contains both invoice billing and pre-paid voucher support.
It's a all-in-one package that runs from a liveCD No need to install different servers, just one computer, this software and a normal router.
Easyhotspot contains all this:
Schematical set-up:
I would look in to the Coova project. It should include everything you need to run your own hotspot - all you need is a wireless access point that will run OpenWRT, and a server to run your RADIUS and web servers. All of this is free (open source, even), and I've used some of its components in the past as part of large-scale commercial wireless systems and can vouch that at least the parts we used were pretty stable. You might have to roll your sleeves up a little and learn a bit about RADIUS and such, but I think it's as painless a process as you're going to find, short of hiring someone to do it for you.
