Manage Wireless Users

Question

Not sure if this in in the right place, but I work in a school, and up until now we have been using open directory and network homes to manage users. As we have been getting laptops for kids with special needs, we have been increasing our number of wireless users. I understand that network home folders work for wireless, but I found it is quite slow. I havn't messed around too much with mobile accounts, but I am currently looking at that for my mac laptops. My question is, is there anyway with Tiger server that I can make users autheniticate before they are allowed on the network? I don't need to manage the PC laptops (or the mac laptops for that matter) I just need to authenticate them so that not everybody has access.
Thanks

Answer 1

Various WiFi devices can use IEEE 802.1x or RADIUS authentication as part of (dis)allowing a user access to a wireless network, and Mac OS X Server can field and can respond to those access requests via Open DIrectory.
Check your particular WiFi router(s) for details and options and features.
The Apple WiFi devices I've worked with have options here.
If your devices do not offer authentication support, either consider an upgrade or check to see if they offer Access Point (AP) features or some other authentication mechanism, and report back here.
Tossing large wads of (disk) data around can be rather bandwidth-intensive, and that usually means upgrades to 802.11n 5 GHz dual-slot, or more WiFi sites and faster back-haul links from those, or distributing the files outwards into the targets or into local caches. The approach toward resolving bandwidth issues usually starts with calculating how much bandwidth you're using and that you expect to need, and working through your configuration to identify bottlenecks (eg: 100 Mb LAN segments, overloaded NICs) and removing or augmenting those connections. Toward identifying and removing the bottlenecks. Or toward lowering loads. Or spreading and smoothing out the peak load. Or a combination of these.