So using the hotspot service for a “hotspot” where wireless network cards are directly connecting to the AP has turned up no troubles. The software works great.
Taking this to the next level and turning on the hotspot service for the segment handling the fixed wireless customers is my goal. This segment has about 250 customers on it across various APs. The entire network is setup in a bridged environment, so the Mikrotik running the hotspot service see’s the end-user’s MAC addresses.
Trouble is, some people have trouble authenticating. I have been unable to narrow down a specific set of circumstances that generate the trouble though. A couple things I’ve noticed:
- The dhcp service always assigns IPs based on the CPE mac; whereas, the hotspot service sometimes authenticates based on CPE mac, and sometimes based on a MAC behind the CPE.
- Some CPE’s will obtain DHCP just fine; however, even though the MAC is configured as a valid user, the hotspot will log that MAC continually trying to authenticate. Each authentication is successful, yet it continues trying into perpetuity.
- I’ve seen a higher percentage of routers (linksys, netopia, etc) have trouble authenticating than end-user computers connected directly to the CPE.
I believe the issue is related to the funky layer 2.5 things many CPEs perform. But I’m really curious if anyone else has successfully set this up and got it working for fixed wireless using AP/CPE combo’s rather than direct to wireless cards and if there’s any gotchas to look out for.
Thanks.