The Community Wireless Network phenomenon is bringing free broadband Internet access to thousands. But how can an average person share their net connection fairly and safely? By using freely available hardware and Open Source software! We'll take a look at an implementation of an Active Wireless Portal and authentication system, using Linux, Apache, SSL, Mysql, and Perl. We'll also see a running example of the authentication system using the Peer-to-Peer (IBSS) mode of 802.11b.