bjqrn
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Arranging a LAN Party for 500-2500 people
Hi Im going to arrange a Lan Party for 500-2500 people. I've done some research, but Im still not sure what to aim for in the networking section.
This is my approach as is:
1 Backbone switch with between 100-500 Gbps total switching capacity depending on the number of users (as said before 500-2500)
For each group of 16 people there will be a 10/100 manageable switch with double gigabit uplinks, for connection to the backbone.
I still don't know what to aim for in the routing department, because Internet access will be needed.
What's the difference between a router and a Layer-3 switch?
I'd appreciate any help!
This is my approach as is:
1 Backbone switch with between 100-500 Gbps total switching capacity depending on the number of users (as said before 500-2500)
For each group of 16 people there will be a 10/100 manageable switch with double gigabit uplinks, for connection to the backbone.
I still don't know what to aim for in the routing department, because Internet access will be needed.
What's the difference between a router and a Layer-3 switch?
I'd appreciate any help!
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ASKER
Thanks for the response!
Does this look like a decent approach?
http://www.linje12.net/bjqrn/networkapproach.PNG
Does this look like a decent approach?
http://www.linje12.net/bjqrn/networkapproach.PNG
Im not going to comment about management,
I'LL JUST LIKE TO BE THERE, jejeje...
PC your design. looks pretty good
I'LL JUST LIKE TO BE THERE, jejeje...
PC your design. looks pretty good
If you use decent network cabling (CAT5 SFTP, CAT6) then you don't need repeaters until you reach 100m.
Otherwise the diagram looks pretty good indeed
Otherwise the diagram looks pretty good indeed
ASKER
About the router, will a computer acting as a router be sufficent, or will I have to invest in an expensive hardware one?
While organising lanparties of up to 1600 people, we have never used a hardware router, we have always used one (or several, depending on the internet configuration) Linux routers.
A debian box with an unstable distro will work very well for you.
We have been using an AMD Athlon 750Mhz with 256Mbyte ram acting as a firewall/router. However, the specs of the proxy server are a little bit more aimed at performance: Dual Athlon MP System with 2Gigs of RAM and a 36Gig SCSI 10k rpm disk (as webcache) with 128mb cache on the SCSI controller. This is way more important; the linux kernel can perfectly well route at wirespeed on a subpar (according to todays standards) server.
A debian box with an unstable distro will work very well for you.
We have been using an AMD Athlon 750Mhz with 256Mbyte ram acting as a firewall/router. However, the specs of the proxy server are a little bit more aimed at performance: Dual Athlon MP System with 2Gigs of RAM and a 36Gig SCSI 10k rpm disk (as webcache) with 128mb cache on the SCSI controller. This is way more important; the linux kernel can perfectly well route at wirespeed on a subpar (according to todays standards) server.
ASKER
OK...
But when using a proxy server, will people be able to play games on the Internet without setting the proxy server manually in the game or installing some application?
But when using a proxy server, will people be able to play games on the Internet without setting the proxy server manually in the game or installing some application?
Most games do not use the HTTP protocol, hence they won't even notice it if they are playing games.
However, what we like to do is redirect *all* known proxy server IPs to the internal proxy servers, so that 80% of our users don't even have to setup their proxy (almost all Belgian providers *require* you to fill in the proxy server; since we are redirecting all traffic going to these IPs on port 8080 to our internal proxy on port 8080, these users are automatically proxied by our proxy server).
If you don't want your users to "go thru the hassle to" type in their proxy server address and port, you can use transparant proxying; most layer3 switches have this feature, just have to configure it. If you don't want to use your switches for this, you can redirect all outgoing traffic on port 80 to the internal proxy server. This is a completely transparant process for your users.
Watch out, however, for MSN; MSN over Proxy can kill your proxy if you don't know what you are doing when setting up transparant proxies.
However, what we like to do is redirect *all* known proxy server IPs to the internal proxy servers, so that 80% of our users don't even have to setup their proxy (almost all Belgian providers *require* you to fill in the proxy server; since we are redirecting all traffic going to these IPs on port 8080 to our internal proxy on port 8080, these users are automatically proxied by our proxy server).
If you don't want your users to "go thru the hassle to" type in their proxy server address and port, you can use transparant proxying; most layer3 switches have this feature, just have to configure it. If you don't want to use your switches for this, you can redirect all outgoing traffic on port 80 to the internal proxy server. This is a completely transparant process for your users.
Watch out, however, for MSN; MSN over Proxy can kill your proxy if you don't know what you are doing when setting up transparant proxies.
ASKER
Ok,
Can you explain the MSN problem a bit further?
Can you explain the MSN problem a bit further?
MSN tries to connect to the MSN servers first, using port 1653 (this might be of, i can not check this now).
if this does not work, it'll try connecting thru port 80 (tcp).
and if that doesn't workt, it'll try using the proxy server set in in Internet Explorer.
(your user can also manually type in the proxy server address and port in MSN properties).
This will dump a massive load on your proxy server, as this is a persistant non-cacheing connection which will hassle your proxy server every 5 milliseconds.
make sure your user can only use the CONNECT commando on your proxy server (i have to check my own squid settings, don't know by heart) so they can not connect to anything else but WEBservers.
if this does not work, it'll try connecting thru port 80 (tcp).
and if that doesn't workt, it'll try using the proxy server set in in Internet Explorer.
(your user can also manually type in the proxy server address and port in MSN properties).
This will dump a massive load on your proxy server, as this is a persistant non-cacheing connection which will hassle your proxy server every 5 milliseconds.
make sure your user can only use the CONNECT commando on your proxy server (i have to check my own squid settings, don't know by heart) so they can not connect to anything else but WEBservers.
Hi bjqrn,
Function wise no difference, they both route packets. But speed-wise, a L3 switch is implied to be faster.
Regards,