1
So immediately I replied “Of course we can do this!” Once all paperwork and payments have been finalized I ordered all required hardware and started flashing the routers with the custom firmware.
In total I used 13 WRT54GL routers, all loaded with the custom DD-WRT firmware with Hotspot System interface. All of them were setup to communicate with each other via WDS (Wireless Distribution System). At that point in time this was the cheapest and most accessible routers to us here in South Africa so I have to make it work. Since then we now have access to the full range of Ubiquiti products and have since then only used their hardware in all my setups.
For router firmware configuration I followed the basic DD-WRT instructions found at http://www.hotspotsy...ide_dd-wrt.html
To be sure they could handle heavy traffic I set each router up individually to have their own DHCP (sub)network and have paid internet on both the lan and wlan ports. I could easily accomplish this by following the instructions below:
For the WDS setup I followed method #2 of the instructions found at:
http://www.hotspotsy...=7055-QFMN-7515
And also the instructions found at: http://www.wi-fiplan...cle.php/3628576 were of excellent value.
After about 2 days of continued confirmation changes, testing and re-testing we finally had the wi-fi network up and running and have had almost zero downtime at this client.
In retrospect this was one of my biggest clients I have installed with the worst of hardware however it all came together like the A-Team due to the fact that we had such excellent back-end infrastructure such as Hotspot System has to rely on.
The hotel:
The routers:
The servers:
