ReefEdge Dolphin
While the name ReefEdge may sound familiar, you may not be aware that ReefEdge offers a free product (for noncommercial use) called Dolphin to help secure and manage wireless networking.
Here's how it works: You download the software (.iso) from http://www.reefedge.com/techzone and burn a CD. Then you get an old PC and boot from the CD. If the PC's BIOS does not support CD boot, you can get a bootable floppy disk that will start the boot process and then read from the CD for the rest of the files needed for the installation process. The process only takes a few minutes to write the custom Linux OS to the hard drive. When it's done, simply remove the CD and reboot the machine.
Here are the hardware requirements:
Pentium (586 or greater)
64 MB RAM
2 PCI Ethernet NICs
64 MB or greater hard drive
The following Ethernet NICs are supported:
3com 3c59x family
National Semiconductor 8390 family
Intel EtherExpress 100
NE2000/pci
PCNet32
Tulip Family
Realtek 8139 cards are not supported.
The basic configuration for Dolphin is to use two Ethernet NICs (no wireless cards). One card (eth0) is called the wired NIC and has a default IP of 192.168.0.1. The other card (eth1) is called the wireless NIC and has a default IP of 10.10.10.1. The idea is to connect the wireless NIC to your AP. Make sure you turn off DHCP on your AP and connect a cable between eth1 and one of the switched ports on your AP (not the WAN port).
When you boot your machine, you will see a series of dots (……..) ending with a single statement (System ready. IP address 192.168.0.1/255.255.255.0). That's it. There's no shell available, so all changes have to be done through the Web browser. If you're not sure which Ethernet NIC is which, you must get a laptop, set a static IP of 192.168.0.2, and use a crossover cable to attach to each NIC, one at a time. Try to ping 192.168.0.1. If you get a reply, then you've found the wired eth0 NIC and the other one is the wireless eth1 NIC.
When you find the wired eth0 NIC, connect your laptop and view http://192.168.0.1 in a browser. The username, by default is admin and the password, by default is admin.
Once you're in the browser, you can make all the changes to the system that you need. First, change the default password. The System Configuration section gives you the ability to change the IP address of the wired or wireless NICs. You can also allocate maximum bandwidth (in kbps) to each of the three built-in groups: unauthenticated users, guests, and users. There is also a feature called Convert To Satellite. Dolphin has the ability to have up to one additional Dolphin machine controlled by a central Dolphin machine, similar to a master/slave configuration. You can set up a satellite if you want to extend the range of your wireless coverage with additional APs.
Next, the Security section is where you can set up the actual security policies that define what users can do (by IP address and port). The User Management section lets you add users and manage groups. Keep in mind that in this free version of Dolphin, so you cannot add additional groups and you are limited to six users. The Monitoring section gives you information about what is happening on your network at any given time. The System Administration section is where you can change your password, restore defaults, and reboot the Dolphin system.
There are some gotchas to keep in mind when you are deploying Dolphin. First, the eth0 wired side of the network only supports a static IP. If you have a cable modem or DSL that requires DHCP, you will have to find another solution (such as using a router/NAT/gateway device between your cable modem/DSL and Dolphin's eth0). Also, you may be able to use a Realtek 8139 NIC for the eth0 wired card; however, if you try to use one on the eth1 wireless side, you may experience unusual behavior, such as DHCP working, but pinging will fail.