05-05-2009, 10:55 AM

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a software program that would allow me to control access by individual computers to our home Airport Extreme wireless network at the Airport level? I would like to be able to turn off access to the Airport connection after midnight and turn it back on in the morning. (I have teenagers that don't want to watch Hulu.com all night!). Is this possible? I would rather be able to control this at the Airport level than to use parental controls at each of the computers in the house. Thanks for any input.

05-05-2009, 12:08 PM

Hi,
I think you should be able to set up a MAC address filtering to set a list of allowed hosts on the network. It can be done with the Airport Utility

but:
- you cannot automate it. i.e. you have to enable/disable the filtering manually.

- mac addresses can be spoofed. For example, if you forbid the access of mac address 00:11:22:33:44:55, the user with this mac address can change it to something else and he can access the network again. You could set a list of allowed mac address. This can make it a bit more complicated for a user to find out which addresses are allowed but it is still possible.

I think that a more reliable solution would be to change (again manually) the WPA2 PSK every time you don't want your kids to have internet.

Tex

05-05-2009, 04:19 PM

Hi,
so I've just had a look on my Airport Express access point and yes you can set timeframes when a specified list of mac address can/cannot access the net. See screenshot