I currently live and work in a hotel.
Here we have a bit of a wifi problem. Basically it is unmanaged and prone to slow speeds, disconnections, and complete failures that require the routers to be unplugged and replugged.

I have taken it on as a project to create a system that focuses on bandwidth monitoring and maintenance.

I was looking for some suggestions or diagrams on how to set up something like this.

Basically, there are three separate connections we are piping into the building. One for the lobby, one for the third floor, and one for the seventh. Each has a respective router. The lobby has five computers hardwired to its router.

I want to establish some sort of way to monitor each connection from one machine. So I can establish when a connection goes down before a slew of guests need to come down to complain about it.

I know little about how to do something like this. I ran a home server when I was in high school, but it was one connection and a network of three computers.

How can I wire the hardware? What kind of software should I learn about? Is there a software solution that can solve the problem of needing to physically unplug the routers when they go down? Either preventative or after the fact?

I am turning the computers over to Linux as that is where I am most comfortable.


Any help would be much appreciated!


O, and printing capabilities and or outside VPN access from the monitoring computer would be superb.
Maybe even potentially host the hotel's website from the server...? Am I rambling nonsense?

First your description of the network is a little fuzzy, it would be helpful if you could clarify if all of the network has one WAN/Internet connection and if it can all talk to one another. The way you have it described almost sounds like three separate networks and 3 separate internet connections.

Now, what you want to do is possible, but you will need all of the devices to be able to communicate and your devices would need to be managed and support SNMP at the very least. When you clarify your network layout (private IP subnets if more than 1 would be helpful too) I can help you more in what you will need and how to set it up.

As above more information is really needed. On hardware - you really shouldn't need to disconnect and reconnect power to a router in the event of a crash. The routers for such a purpose shouldn't be crashing that often (or at all) in the first place. Is it safe to guess this network is running on inexpensive consumer grade hardware?

Excellent, thanks scheidel21 for the response. I really just needed to get my foot in the door on some of the jargon.

There are two separate internet connections.

I am looking at the setup now to get a better idea of what they have going currently and then I'll be making my changes.
I'll post when specifics surface or questions slow me.

NyteOwl, so to begin I have reset all of the routers, gateways, and access points to factory default and left the connections on both access points as Open. This seems to have solved the problem of the consistent crashes so I am thinking it had something to do with the previous configuration. As I work through it I will establish appropriate connection security and hopefully an optimal configuration. My knowledge of the limits of a configuration is limited.

What part of the performance do I really have control of?

As for the hardware, we are privately owned so I'd say sort of an inbetween on quality. Somewhere between nuclear silo and my grandfather's apartment.

What is now
i) 2 Comcast Business IP Gateways :: SMC8014
... the upper one is connected to a switch, and the lower is connected directly to the AP...

ii) 2 EliteConnect™ Universal Wireless Access Point Universal 2.4GHz/5GHz Wireless Access Point :: SMC2555W-AG2

iii) Buffalo Air Station NFiniti High Power Giga :: WZR-HP-G300NH
...upgrades are an option but I want to work with what I have
...unless there is some kind of really cool game changer

The switch:
iv) TrendNET POE Switch :: TPE-S44
...with 8 slots:
1.AccessPoint
2.?
3.?
4.?
5.?
6.?
7.?
8.Gateway
There are so many wires coming off of this thing and only two are obvious. I will be filling these in as they reveal themselves to me.
One more treasure is there are three SSIDs that mimic our naming and security scheme that seem to be separate from our internal setup. They may be personal routers of resident guests or may be fake connections? Again, more to look into.



... http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?event=v...N_USA&pid=1562

A new thread associated with this network having to do with IP Leasing.

... http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ns-4175422473/