Management of Internet Bandwidth in Academic Institutes by Implementing Coovachilli and Free Radius

Abstract

With rapid growth in popularity and use of Internet in academic institutions, the institutions are struggling to keep up with the demand. They need capability to effectively control, monitor and optimize the available bandwidth to ensure good service at optimum cost. This paper has described implementation of Coovachilli and free radius for management of internet bandwidth in academic institutions. During this research, freeware tools such as Freeradius and CoovaChilli have been used to manage Internet bandwidth on a per-user basis based on user credentials. The mechanisms have been used to control bandwidth of Wireless users. Same can be used for wired connections also. When a user tries to connect, the user is redirected to a captive portal under CoovaChilli. There the user provides login and password. Based on the credentials thus provided, CoovaChilli checks identity with the Freeradius. If authorized, the client is allowed access with the bandwidth as mentioned in the profile of the user in WISPr attributes define in Radreply table of Freeradius. When the user is not authorized, CoovaChilli sends an error message. This paper demonstrates that bandwidth can be effectively monitored, managed and optimized by using cost-effective open-source tools in the existing network scenario of the institution.