Networking rooms in my school

[Jospeh]

I have a project to network some rooms in my school. I am a first year computer science major so bear with me, I just need to learn the prices on routers, cabling, switeches ect. It is about nine rooms, with as much as 30 users in each room. I need above 4Mb per user. It needs to be cost efficient yet be scalable. Would wireless be a way to go?

 

[JustAGuy51]

Either path has advantages and disadvantages. I've seen wired connections being abused by students just for the sake of killing their boredom.

Wireless route, 2 ways to do it:

1) Set up a RADIUS server that is backed by database (that contains student credentials). Then you set up wireless ESS (Extended Service Set) infrastructure. Basically, it means there are a number of access points (AP), one of them acting as a master and it is the one that talks to RADIUS. The rest talks to that master. Of course, all those AP's and RADIUS are networked using wires. Each AP will cover an area; make sure there are some overlaps betw. different areas covered by respective AP's. You need to enable 802.1x auth on this ESS. You don't need encryption for it to work. If encryption, using preshared key will give you a huge burden for maintenance since you have large and dynamic user base; I won't even consider it.

2) (just some knowledge on this one) You still multiple AP's but they are standalone AP's. When client connects to an AP, everything will be given out (IP, DNS, gateway, etc.). On the contrary, 802.1x won't give you jack unless you authenticate first. But when client actually accesses a web site or initiate any traffic for that matter, all client traffic will be redirected to a Proxy where client will need to authenticate. Once successful, the client can go out to Internet. In this case, Proxy will be acting as a firewall too, only allowing traffic that passed auth.

Don't be cheap on AP's for a userbase like yours.

 

[JustAGuy51]

Let me know if you go with wireless-Proxy route. I like to know some of the details.