Re: Big Temporary Networks

[Chris Boyd <cboyd () gizmopartners com>]

On Sep 13, 2012, at 9:29 AM, Jay Ashworth wrote:

> If not, do any of the people who've already done have 5 minutes to chime in 
> on what they did and what they learned?

I have not done any that size/duration but I have done some where the scale is 1000s of attendees over a long weekend 
event, with small budgets.

You'll need a beefy NAT box.  Linux with Xeon CPU and 4GB RAM minimum.   Run your DNS resolver and DHCP here, unless 
you have hardware to spare.

Set your DCHP lease time to 1 hour so you don't have an address tied up for someone who stopped in for 15 minutes three 
days ago.

If you don't have any sort of WiFi controller, name the APs differently.  People are really pretty good about picking 
the AP with the best signal strength.

Configure and test your equipment before you get to the venue because you will be running around tryiong to find the 
electrician to turn on the breakers you need, and they forgot about.

Change the default passwords on the APs.  I did a lot of these for maker/hacker crowds, and there's great fun to be had 
in advertising rude SSID names.

Bandwidth.  Lots of Bandwidth.

--Chris