Dynamic MAC rule creation and removal

Hi Andrew,

It's been ages since I've found something worth suggesting for BWM, but I had this one problem presented to me tonight and I couldn't help but think this would be an ideal feature for BWM.

A client wants to dynamically detect MAC addresses, then have a pre-defined rule with quota, applied to that MAC, then have the rule auto-deleted 24 hours later. The end user doesn't have to know or do anything and no admin required.

The reason for this, they want to allow say 100MB of free traffic to a Wi-Fi client, but instead of messing with captive-portals and user account controls, instead just have a dynamic MAC detection, rule setup, then rule removal, but the rule have a pre-defined quota.

I thought that was actually a pretty practical idea, I don't know if you like the sound of it, but sounds like something BWM could be useful for in the future. He doesn't want it IP based, because of DHCP and constantly changing Wi-Fi devices.

I don't know what the practical technical limitations would be, such as the maximum rules that could be created and stored until they are automatically removed etc... but I thought sounds like an actual reasonable task for a bandwidth server to do.

Cheers,
Gavin,
New Zealand.

Interestingly enough, this EXACT situation is what I can to the forum to look-up today. I have a lot of unique users each day and I run on a satellite internet system, so dynamic MAC address filtering is what I need to get my system running right. IP address filtering simply doesn't work. I have tried Daily limits, Hourly limits, etc...

Any help Softperfect?

-Nick

I've been looking at using this package to manage our bandwidth problems.

I have staff, who should have set quotas, and visitors coming in, who I want to be able to just connect and start using it, but with a smaller default quota.

I'm thinking I might be able to have our staff with fixed IP's in one range (192.168.1.50 - 99 say), and the router would use DHCP in another range (192.168.1.100-150 say).

That way visitors would just connect, and they'd get a DHCP address, and the the default quota would apply to them. If they turn into long-term, or become staff, we'd just give them a fixed IP to move them into the staff quota.

Is that a solution to this problem? SInce I haven't installed the package yet, I'm just guessing ...

Thanks,
Gerry

The only problems with dhcp.... If you get more than 50 people in a day they will end up sharing a quota that's already been half used by the first person etc... Depending on your setup. It's quite easy to change an ip address as well.

Hence why I suggested a dynamic Mac rule creation be added to bandwidth manager. It's usually harder to change a Mac and if it setup a rule on a Mac basis automatically then you don't have to worry about someone using a previous quota for their ip address.

At the moment the bandwidth manager is setup for fixed rules and quotas.

I know, it's been almost a year ago, but I have finally implemented this in the new version.

Better late then never