Synopsis

CommuniG8 Limited is a small start-up IT consultancy.

In this article, we will list the installation procedure used to build a CentOS 5.5 64-bit VMware Virtual Machine used to run CoovaChilli 1.2.4 utilising the Coova Mini Portal as a HotSpot for another VM runing a web browser.

Background

As part of a project to test building a Captive Portal for a Wireless Hotspot network, we needed to setup a virtual network with two Virtual Machines where one was the CoovaChilli Server and another could be used to run a web browser through the HotSpot so that we could test a number of configuration options.

Please also see the following article which explains how to configure VMware Fusion to disable the internal VMware DHCP - click here.

CentOS 5.5 64-bit Installation/Configuration

CentOS 5 installed with default options and updated via yum (as of 26-08-2010)
Must have two LAN Interfaces implemented as a VMware "HostOnly" LAN (VMware DHCP Server disabled)
eth0 to internet (UPLINK)
eth1 to WiFi (DOWNLINK,subscriber) - DONT CONFIGURE IP
Create /etc/modprobe.d/disable-ipv6.conf containing "options ipv6 disable=1" and "blacklist ipv6"
yum install gcc
yum install openssl-devel
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/haserl/files/haserl-devel/0.9.26/haserl-0.9.26.tar.gz/download
tar xzf haserl-0.9.26.tar.gz
cd haserl-0.9.26
./configure --prefix=
make
make install

CoovaChilli 1.2.4 Installation

wget http://ap.coova.org/chilli/coova-chilli-1.2.4.tar.gz
tar xzf coova-chilli-1.2.4.tar.gz
cd coova-chilli-1.2.4
./configure --prefix= --enable-miniportal --with-openssl
make
make install
edit /etc/rc.d/init.d/chilli, change "$(which start-stop-daemon)" to "$(which start-stop-daemon 2>/dev/null)" twice
edit /etc/rc.d/init.d/chilli, change start seq from 65 to 99
chkconfig chilli on

CoovaChilli 1.2.4 Configuaration

Create /etc/chilli/config and include the following;

HS_WANIF=eth0
HS_LANIF=eth1
HS_NETWORK=192.168.1.0
HS_NETMASK=255.255.255.0
HS_UAMLISTEN=192.168.1.2
HS_DYNIP=192.168.1.128
HS_DYNIP_MASK=255.255.255.128

Summary

The configuration used above is enough to get a basic test system started. We will expland on this to include freeRadius with MySQL in the next article.

Contact

Richard Gate, CommuniG8 Limited
Unit 122, Louis Pearlman Centre
Goulton Street
Kingston-Upon-Hull
East Yorkshire

United Kingdom
HU3 4DL
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+44 (0)1482 225013