LAN Party

IMPORTANT NOTICE!! We'll be having a hacking session this Saturday July 9th in Toronto to work out some kinks and install some software. Gte your hardware together and contact the rest of the crew! cheers! Bennyp 01:34, 3 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Wireless Networking hubs at every stage will facilitate a northtek message board and other network services such as set times, reviews, call outs, missing items list, etc. Adequate signage should be posted and public terminals should be set up. Please check out the Suggested reading, and add references of your own.

Click Here to Wiki the LAN_Inventory

Infrastructure
Having some experience with medium-to-large scale networks, this is what I (Wolever) feel would work out the best. Please feel free to comment/insult/praise.

Preliminary stuff
Before any hardware considerations can be made, a few things must be decided upon. First, how much area will the network cover? How much of that do you want to be wireless? How fast does it need to be? Next, how much of what hardware is available? Can people can donate switches/routers/hubs/access points? How much cable is available? Is there a budget? Finally, the practical questions: How will all the devices be powered? How will they be protected against the weather (rain, dew, wind, and so on)?

General Outline
First, one central server will be needed to handle things like DNS and DHCP. OutofOrder, the machine that this wiki is running off of, will do this job. It will have to be outfitted with as many network cards as is possible. One (or more) "root" switches will be connected to this machine. There will be many "satellite" switches connected to this "root" switch. These satellite switches are the ones which people will actually plug in to. Some may have to be linked together to get longer ranges (because ethernet has a functional range of about 100 meters). Wireless can be plugged in at any point on the network.

It will be very helpful to have someone on hand who has worked with this sort of network before, because a lot of the problems you get will be common ones.

Things to keep in mind

 * Ethernet has a functional range of about 100 meters
 * Wireless is unreliable and should not be used to connect nodes unless absolutely necessary.
 * I'm guessing wireless will work for about 100 meters of forest (50 meters of dense forest), and about 200-250 meters line-of-sight. I could be totally wrong thou.  Anyone know better?

check this out - cheap wifi antennae http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/

Hardware
Click Here to Wiki the LAN Inventory

Software
Software available for distribution: ISOs of all the major distributions will be available (Debian, Fedora Core, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Mandriva, etc etc). Live cds (Knoppix, puppy, whatnot) will also be available. A number of blank discs will also be on hand to make copies. CDs will be distributed on a barter system.

As far as server software on OutofOrder goes, theres: GLAMP - GNU/Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP, PHPBB, Mediawiki and more.

Cameras
One possible use for this server could be central picture storage. If your bringing a camera make sure you have the upload drivers so you can upload your pictures for them to be posted on the net. Dj.error

Suggested Reading
Freenetworks HOWTO build a Wireless Access Point with Gentoo [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how2/article/0,20967,1076525,00.html backpack lan