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blacky
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Hardware for Hotspot with 400 users

Mon Aug 29, 2011 10:14 am

I'm searching for Hardware that can handle 400 concurrent hotspot users. I use the standard hotspot setup with no special firewall rules. I want to use VRRP and Load Balancing between two Routers. The Routers connect to a 100MBit line.
Can two RB1200 handle that or do i need a x86 system?

thx for your answers

Sven
 
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janisk
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Re: Hardware for Hotspot with 400 users

Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:51 pm

RB1200 should handle this amount of users easily. just note, that you better opt for RAIDUS server (like user-manager) to mange logins as internal database is optimized for around 100 users and 400 will stretch it badly.
 
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TomjNorthIdaho
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Re: Hardware for Hotspot with 400 users

Wed Aug 31, 2011 10:14 pm

...I'm searching for Hardware that can handle 400 concurrent hotspot users....
Sounds a little like some of my busy WiFi networks.

I would avoid 400 hotspot users on a single omni antenna - single radio card.

I would suggest (if possible) using sector antennas with APs on different channels.

I would suggest making the AP act like a ethernet bridge to the wlan card. Then disable all other services on the AP. Do not run DNS - do not run DHCP - do not run NAT - do not run Captive Portal - do not run anything that will load up your CPU.

With a 400 user hotspot - you should be using DNS and DHCP servers which are outside of your AP or APs.

You might want to take look at running a pfSense box. It supports Captive Portal (walled garden) , radius authentication , bandwidth up and down rate limiting per MAC address, DNS , DHCP and NAT. This permits your APs to run at low cpu loads (around 3 percent) with hundreds of connedted users.

--EDIT -- I added another note
For this many users - you should also configure your APs for CTS-to-self with a threshold of 0 (zero).

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