I have a multi-node wireless bridged network using WDS, with the first node running a hotspot and also having a WAN connection to the Internet. This is working just fine and clients who associate with any of the bridged nodes can authenticate via radius and get out to the Internet.
I want to be able to identify which node a client is associated with without having to manually check all the log files of each node looking for the mac address of the client. I’m using freeradius, so I have complete control over that, but there is nothing in the auth or accounting-start packets that tells me where the client connected from. I get the mac address as “call from” and the name of the hotspot as the “call to”, but nowhere is there any information that tells me which node the client is associated with.
I thought of using different IP address ranges for each node, but I don’t know how to make that happen. The hotspot is the only DHCP server and I don’t see any way to have it assign addresses from different pools to different nodes.
I can imagine one option, that is called ‘radio-name’. This is access-point option, so you are able to see in the station radio-name (for example, you may set specific information about that router).
However, it is not related to RADIUS and this configuration is shown in ‘registration-table’.
Thanks, but that feature won’t help identify the user after they have logged off and de-associated from the access point.
Most of our clients are windows PC’s. These devices don’t “see” the radio name and even if they do, they don’t remember the name after the
connection has ended. Also, we are not trying to help the client determine to which node they are connected, but rather have the network
determine which node the client is connected to.
We, as network operators, are looking for some way to identify where the user connected after the connection has ended,
without having to search the log files of each node. This requires putting some entry in the radius packet when the session
starts that is unique to each particular node. Right now, all of the information in the radius packet is related to the hotspot, which is shared by all of the bridged nodes, not to any particular node.