February 25, 2008
Help needed: how do I share an internet connection to multiple users?
I’m staying at a place where there are about 20 of us sharing a single Telkom 3 GB line…which, needless to say, stopped working 5 days ago when we exceeded our bandwidth. I’ve volunteered myself to install some sort of user management system so we can have individual log-ons to the internet so we can keep track of how much bandwidth each person is using.
The only snag is, I don’t know how to do it! Help! I have 2 ideas currently: SkyRove and Ubuntu. Here goes…
One option is installing SkyRove on our router (I heard the SkyRove guys speak at a 27 Dinner in April last year in Jozi) and issue vouchers to everyone (we don’t want to charge for usage…yet!). This will at least give everyone separate login accounts to the internet once they’ve connected wirelessly – I’m just not sure of the reporting capacities (can I view bandwidth usage per user per month?).
To install SkyRove I’ll either need to buy their router, or install their firmware update on our Telkom router (which I think will support it?).
Another option is to use the edubuntu server I’ve recently set up to somehow connect directly to the internet (via PPPoE?) and then allow access to that connection through the wireless router somehow. I think that means that people will connect to the local wireless network, which will then route them (how?) through the Ubuntu server, which will have a list of users which people somehow authenticate against, and then allow connection to the internet, somehow logging the internet activity. This would be kinda cool, because then I could install a squid proxy server on the line and probably reduce bandwidth usage that way, so I’d be quite happy to do this too.
Any advice from the networking geeks out there?
Comments(1)
Roger Saner is a web platform developer (using 
Hi Roger! Thanks for considering Skyrove as a viable option.
There are a few ways to do it: 1. The usual way: You pay for the line and the bandwidth, and charge a price to everyone that covers your costs. Remember that you get 50% of total revenues.
2. Set up Privileged User Accounts. You can now charge a flat monthly fee if you wish. You will need to create the accounts and log into them individually (for the time being) in order to see bandwidth usage for each.
I must admit though that Skyrove’s strength is prepaid, per megabyte internet access, and not necessarily general bandwidth management. Feel free to give me a shout any time on henk at skyrove.com if you have any more questions!