Michael C. Richardson
Sandelman Software Works Inc.
mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
July 28, 2003
WLan Systems is proposing a mechanism to renumerate owners of open 802.11 base stations for their use by roaming users. This document is a proposal to develop a protocol for use by base stations to communicate billing information to a central repository. A total of 11 days of work is proposed.
A registered 802.11 user will wander into a new network, with a new base station. The base station will inform an accounting server of the presence of this user, by the MAC address (IEEE OUI-48) of the user's computer.
The owner of the base station will be compensated by the ``TribalAccess'' system based upon the number of users who have used that base station.
The rate of use for the base station will be on a per-day basis - per-second and per-hour usage need not be very accurate, but will be kept as detailed as possible to avoid disputes.
Each base station will be configured with the address of the accounting server, as well as a backup accounting server.
There are further details of this that will need to be resolved, however this proposal only covers developing a prototype system.
A test system will be developed under Linux, initially using User-Mode-Linux systems.
A client daemon will be developed to watch the ARP table for a designated set of interfaces, and record the presence of particular MAC addresses. It will use a protocol based upon the radius accounting protocol model.
The client will do some failover from primary accounting server to a secondary accounting server.
The freeradius.org server will be used on the server to gather information. If necessary, it may be modified/extended to make the logging easier to process.
No log processing will be done.
Testing will be done on Linux and NetBSD.
The following items will be delivered:
Initial setup of testing environment will take 1 day.
Creation of initial client code for client will take 3 days. This stage will provide for a command line version of the client that will log whatever information is provided, and get the bugs out of the testing environment.
Client daemon code to listen to routing socket and/or scan ARP table regularly will take 3 days.
Integration of arp watcher and radius client, and testing will take 2 days.
Testing on real hardware - NetBSD: 1 day. Linux: 1 day.
Total is 11 days.
It is proposed to complete this work for September 3, 2003, assuming a contract by August 5, 2003.
11 days of effort are indicated.
Regular pricing is 11 * 7.5hr * 100EU/hr = 8250 EU.
It would be acceptable for up to 50% to be in equity.