WiFi network on a schedule

In this example, a school enables its WiFi network only during school hours. The school is open from 8am to 6pm Monday through Friday.

A schedule applied in the security policy would control access to the Internet, but outside of the scheduled period the SSID would still be visible and clients could associate with it. In this example, the schedule is applied in the SSID configuration. The SSID is available only during the scheduled hours.

This example assumes that a user group has already been configured for WiFi users.

1. Create the schedule
Go to Policy & Objects > Schedules. Create a recurring schedule for school hours (in the example, 8am-6pm, Monday through Friday).
2. Create the SSID
Go to WiFi Controller > SSID and create the WiFi interface. Set a Name and IP/Network Mask for the interface.
Enable DHCP Server to provide a range of IP addresses for your WiFi clients.
Set Schedule to the new schedule, and configure the other WiFi Settings as required.
3. Create the security policy
Go to Policy & Objects > IPv4 Policy and create a policy that allows Internet access for mobile devices on the Student-net wireless network. Give the policy a name that identifies what it is used for (in the example, Student-WiFi-Internet). Set Incoming Interface to the wireless interface and Outgoing Interface to the Internet-facing interface. Set Schedule to the new schedule and make sure NAT is enabled.
Results Verify that mobile devices can connect to the Internet outside of class time, when the schedule group is valid. Verify that the SSID is not available after scheduled times.