[isf-wifidog] Radius Accounting & Windows Firmware Installer (Sagar)

[Sagar]

Hi All,

Thanks for your responses but a windows installer would really help easing
out install and build process.

 

Can someone explain why LINKSYS built a separate windows Installer besides
their Web interface which does pretty much good job.

The answer is very simple they want to take stress away from people who
would be actually installing it. It’s an option if u want U can use it.

 

I read at wifidog website  “Install of WIFI dog is purely technical and
limited to system administrator or people who know LINUX/UNIX well”. Now
that is good as far as you want to be in side your small domain but if you
want to go global u need something as easy as CLCIK CLICK finish which
average Windows user is used to for his life and always reluctant to change.
There are number of open source projects and I have been investigating lot
of them over years, they mainly failing as lack of official support and ease
of install/maintain process. What is a use of a system if software itself
costs nothing but install & support costs a fortune.

 

I have been looking at hotspots for couple of years and I still remember a
day when I went to visit XYZ (Can’t name them but they are biggest brand
worldwide) technology center here in UK. They came up with a grand marketing
idea but bit foolish to sell hotspot device(like WRt54G) for 199 pounds and
then have installers all over country who will charge extra 500/1000 pounds
for each venue. Result…Couple of years later they went bust loosing
millions. The reason is very simple , Initial hotspot deployment cost were
high and returns were too low. If you look at initial cost it was high
because they didn’t engaged end user directly but put technical people
(installers) who will charge absolutely any amount. I have spoken to people
who have charged in a region of 2000 pounds (3500$) for couple of days work.

 

Let’s think what a normal user need? 

Consider a café or Restaurant owner who doesn’t know much about computers
and definitely not LINUX but been using MS word and windows. He wants to put
a hotspot in his area for his users or for his community.  He can easily
afford it these days as broadband with 2 MBPS downstream is sold here for 15
pounds.

 

I would be really happy if I can ask him to follow these instructions…..

1.         Buy WRT54G from tigerdirect.com else buy.com

2.         Configure your PC/Laptop for DHCP (Everyone knows how to do it)

3.         Power it on and HIT RESET BUTTON to get WRT at it’s default
settings (IP 192.168.1.1)

4.         Connect WRT54G LAN port (Any one of them from 1 to 4) to your
PC/Laptop’s LAN port using CAT5

5.         Insert my CD and fire wifidog installer .Now follow instructions
online 

 

What does an installer need to do?

An installer should be wrapped with a WiFIdog firmware (BIN FILE) which will
flash BIOS with new WIFIDOG firmware. I know using TFTP you can load a BIN
FILE so all we need is a built in TFTP client inside installer which will
transfer a bin image bit by bit. We can create a FLASH image using JTAG
cable and Linux/windows software provided by Sveasoft developer
“HairyDairyMade”.

 

Hope this makes sense And finally I am not a stupid end user but I am
working in software industry for more then 10 Years. I work on Oracle,
Sybase, SQL Servers fairly massive systems where average database size is
about 200GB for each of our system. I have been playing with Sveasoft,
DD-WRT and OPENWRT for number of years.

 

Thanks,

Sagar

 

 

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