setting up a internet cafe

[B&W]

hi, i have a relative who is going to setup a cafe he has the building and the computers. 8 computers it will have to begin with.

ive recommended that he choose a isp with the highest upload possible.

the people who will be using it will be at best individuals who have a basic knowledge of operating computers. so the equipment cant be professional (cisco routers, etc).

im thinking that he can use a commerical router(netgear, linksys,etc) and a switch setup.

however tbh i am unsure of how he will do all the wiring (this is what he mainly needs help on).

i mean will he use Twisted Pair Cable under the floorboards and terminate it with a rj45 wall port at 1 end. with a patch panel at the other end?

then wires from the patch panel to switch. and switch to router?

also would 1mb upload be enuff for 8 pcs. i mean at the moment hes limited to using commerical isps and equipment. and 1mb is around the max most isps do.

the other problem is software.

he will need software that allows him to monitor how much time a user is using on each pc. ie say they pay for 1 hour, the net must stop working for him after 1 hour and the internat cache/history must clear so the next user can start fresh.

he'll need upload/download limiters also, but it will have to be a server-client proggy. ie he will have 1 main machine (server) controlling their access.

 

[B&W]

hi phil thanks for the advice.

how would i go about setting up traffic shaping? i guess it works at software level?

also, stopping people from using p2p (bit torrent) and accessing dodgy sites would be very useful.

surely there must be some proggie out there that does something like this?

 

[B&W]

Yes, having a linux gateway along with configured iptables would do all this for you along with keeping costs low.

ahh and therein lies the problem. the people who will be managing this will be standard windows users they have no experience of linux.

thx for the suggestion tho

 

[B&W]

certainly looks like the right thing for them gary, but tbh i aint got the time to do something like that for em.

gonna need to find some software that does something similar but is simple to use & quick to configure. something windows based would be nice.



what router should i look at. switch/patch panel isnt a problem. but the router must be good and reliable.

also is this the right type of cabling to use between the rj45 sockets and patch panel: Cat 5e Twisted Pair Cable

 

[B&W]

hi hybrid, had a look at the censornet site. am liking it from what i can see so far, certainly seems quite easy to configure.

will have to get a router that supports rj 11 and can be used as a bridge also, so it can connect to the censornet box.

 

[B&W]

Something like a draytek would be a good router/modem.

Pretty cheap and easy to use when compared with Cisco, I put drayteks in at all my clients. Something like a vigor 2600 should do the trick. That ways you can VPN in should the need arise

Aaron

hi will have a look into draytek. just need something that can be used in bridge mode so it can pass the routing to the censornet box.

 

[B&W]

Well, you could build a box with 2 NIC's.

One connecting to your router using a crossover cable. The other NIC will be used to connect directly into the switch.

Basically on each workstation you will have to set the gateway as being the censornet box. The CN box will have the gateway of the router/modem.

Its very easy to setup too. Censornet can also act as the DCHP server too.

Oh and a couple of other features include traffic/bandwidth shaping/throttling. If your clever enough you can also customise the IP chains to stop certain applications from getting past the box.

A rather clever piece of software.

yup. does sound quite simple

thx for the link m8.

 

[B&W]

update

well, getting closer now.

have decided on a setup. will be router(bridge mode)> censornet box>switch.

wiring from wall sockets(cat 5e twisted pair cabling) will be terminated at patch panel.

need help on two things.

1. what switch shall i get? will get a 16 port switch incase he expands.
will something like a netgear/linksys £75-100 do the job?

Netgear FS116 16 Port Switch - Retail (NW-006-NG) £52.82 . thinkin about somethin like this

2. the printer. will i have to get a print server and a third network card to attach to the censornet box?

 

[B&W]

thanks gary. the censornet route looks fine

 

[B&W]

update:

the cafe will open on thursday.

setup is:

linksys wag54 router going to 16 port switch.

simple and does the job, we are using cyber monitor for the software, http://www.cybermonitor.net/

6 pcs so far, 4 have 15" tfts, 2 have 17" tfts. specs are 2.4ghz p4, 256 ram.

all pcs have webcams & headsets.

printers are 1 b&w laser printer, 1 HP officejet thingy which does scan/fax/copy etc.

have to setup them up tomorrow so any of the pcs can print to them, cyber monitor has its own print server.

line is BT 4mb download, 800k upload. wanted 8mb but thats the best we can get considering our distance from the local exchange. should be adequate, BT is offering a wireless deal to us where we enable wireless and BT pays us when customers use it. i have wireless disabled atm.

apart from scan/fax/copy (need to get a seperate photocopier eventually, have a seperate scanner so officejet will just be used for fax/copy/color printing) we are having VOIP on 2 seperate pcs aswell, BT is sending us something called 10v which we plug into our router and then plug our officejet into it for fax (FOIP) and pcs for VOIP.

just writin a list of what needs to be done tomorrow, should go ok.

 

[B&W]

hi phil, 50p for 30 mins, 80p for 1 hour.

 

[B&W]

well i convinced him to up the 1hr fee to £1. which is the same as a cafe which operates about 1 mile away that is always full.

hes doin quite good so far, the area is mostly asian and a lot of people aint got pcs.

apart from the pcs (were gettin 2 more in), hes selling fonecards, stationery. also got fax/photocopy (a lot of ppl come in for fotocopies). and VOIP is installed, we just need the software to monitor the fones (havin a tuff time finding that, most of the VOIP software is for the pcs).

a lot of ppl will come for the international calls, he'll get most of the money from that. im also putting a few online games on the pc's aswell.

 

[B&W]

Are you going to up the ram for the game playing machines? What graphics cards do these have? 256mb on (im assuming) an xp based machine is really going to grind for gameplay!

im gonna stik cs 1.6 on there and a few other old games like q3/ut.

already tried cs and tactical ops (mod for ut) , they work fine.