Time Quota

[zheron]

I have noticed that there is a 'maximum time per sesssion' but it seems that it just logs the user off and they can just log right back on again. Seems rather pointless.

I realize there is a way to limit users accounts by time, but is there a way to limit anonymous users by time? I would like to give anonymous users a maximum of 5 hours per day and then to log them off and prevent them from getting back on again.

[alan]

The "maximum time per session" feature is designed to prevent "unattended" peer-to-peer software which will consume a lot of bandwidth. By requesting user to login say once per hour explicitly, it can prevent this situation.

From your description, you can try the user attribute "'recurring". It provides time within a day type of tracking (e.g. every Mon/Wed at 7-9pm). Note that the "recurring" attribute is available in username/password mode (instead of anonymous mode).
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~ Patronsoft Limited ~

[zheron]

Ah, I see. I understand the usefulness of that feature now. Thank you for the explanation.

Any idea whether in a future version, you would be able to limit anonymous user's by time like you can for regular users?

We're an airport and essentially have two problem users:

1) The ones that come in and download massive amounts as much as you'll give them if left unthrottled.

and

2) The ones that just sit on the network all day every day. These are typically not travelers but tenants of the airport like airline employee's etc., and while they don't consume a huge amount of bandwidth all at once over time they become a problem, especially if you multiply it by 10 or 20.

The network is really intended for the typical traveler not the for the airlines to mooch free internet. I don't mind them using it, so long as they don't abuse it. My thinking is that the typical traveler is only in the airport for a maximum of 5 hours or so. So if I just place a maximum amount of time on how long the user could be on the network per day, that would solve my problem.

Do you think that maybe I could perform some kind of workaround?

[alan]

1) You can use Bandwidth Throttling (either global or per-user)

2) This is a bit difficult for Anonymous since it doesn't have login process. We can probably implement for some restriction (apart from bandwidth throttling) for Anonymous users, but the question is how to make it generic (i.e. useful for many FirstSpot users)?
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~ Patronsoft Limited ~

[zheron]

I would think that anywhere you offer free wifi, if there are neighboring buildings where people can pick up your signal it would not be uncommon for people to setup full time P2P downloading workstations, and other forms of abusing your network.

In short I don't think this problem is exclusive to just airports. I just gave one example, but I think that by and large everyone would benefit from having multiple tiers of protecting their bandwidth. First by throttle, then by quota, then by time. With all three in combination I think you cover it from several different angles of abuse. Each form of protection protects from different things, so all of them combined really are the way to go, but that's just IMHO.