300 person LAN network questions.

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Jagernaut

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Im going to be running a 300 person LAN March 2010.

Linksys RV016 multi WAN router. --- Internet (3x Comcast cable modems)
Catalyst 4006 switch --- Core Switch
50 8 port Dlink 10/100 switches. --- Table Switches

The table switches will have 6 of the 8 ports available to users. 2 tables, 3 person each.


My question to you fine people is.....

Will this be workable?

I have been told that this not a good method. That I should change the table switches out to 24 to 48 port gigabit switches then add some gigabit ports to the 4006. That when people do file transfers it will bring the game play to a hobble?

My first consideration is smooth game play. My 2nd it cost of course.

My thinking is that most LAN games are designed with internet play in mind, and 100K connections to the net are suffcient to run smooth games. Being that 6 people are sharing a 100Mb connection that should be way suffcient to run a smooth game? Even with file sharing happening?
 
the problem is you're segmenting the network too much with a bunch of little 8 port switches, if any packet needs to go farther than the local 8 port(highly likely) its going to have to take 2 extra hops to get there ( ~>core~>table) that can cause alot of unnecessary traffic. 24 port switches at minimum IMO. 48's would be great. gigabit i wouldnt worry about for the access switches. 100Mb is more than enough for game play, if people complain about file transfer speeds, tell em to STFU and play more games. same goes for the gamers bitching about lag, tell all the pr0n swapping whores to do that shit later on in the night when the gaming has slacked off a little. ;)
 
B1zz said:
the problem is you're segmenting the network too much with a bunch of little 8 port switches, if any packet needs to go farther than the local 8 port(highly likely) its going to have to take 2 extra hops to get there ( ~>core~>table) that can cause alot of unnecessary traffic. 24 port switches at minimum IMO. 48's would be great. gigabit i wouldnt worry about for the access switches. 100Mb is more than enough for game play, if people complain about file transfer speeds, tell em to STFU and play more games. same goes for the gamers bitching about lag, tell all the pr0n swapping whores to do that shit later on in the night when the gaming has slacked off a little. ;)
Click to expand...


Good advice on the whiners...

The network is fairly segmented. But how much if an improvement are we talking about going to 24 port switches? Chances are that any given game is going to have to make at least 2 hops unless all players are on the same switch.

The core switch has 64GBs of switching on the backplane. So even with it segmented as is Id be hitting 10% tops of its switching capacity.

But I am really curious on how much if an improvment would be gained by going to 24 port switches.
 
There are quite a few "LAN party setup" threads, many go into some good details about building the servers and laying out the network and rules and how to best prepare it and stuff. Probably good to do a search and read a few of them, they cover a lot of info.

I've done a ton of larger LAN parties. In part of the "rulebook" everyone gets before showing up, doing file transfers is discouraged. You're there to play.

You pretty much can't help doing 2x hops for most attendees from client to game server, when organizing a conference room. You have your large core switch, and you have a bunch of other switches spread around the conference room. These outer switches have 1 home run up to the core switch....never cascading to each other.

People close enough to the front of the conference room can plug into the core switch...but now you have a problem...those plugged into the outer switche will complain about those being plugged right into the core switch has having an unfair advantage. Another disadvantage of having people up front plugged into the core switches...more patch cables running up the floor, higher expense also.

Setup your tables ...assuming back to back, the 8 port switch in the middle...1 of those ports for uplink to the core switch, the remaining 7 ports avail to those sitting at the table. 7 x 50 = 350 max guests.
 
Adding..need to think about the purpose of the internet connection. Because multi-wan will be load balancing. Connection sessions can jump around each WAN connection due to the load balancing, and session based applications can drop.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Adding..need to think about the purpose of the internet connection. Because multi-wan will be load balancing. Connection sessions can jump around each WAN connection due to the load balancing, and session based applications can drop.
Click to expand...

Im looking at a few diffrent routers. The one I was going to use Linksys RV016 but its limited to a class c network. So I cant get all 300 persons on it. But I am looking at a few multi port routers and some of them you can bind ip ranges to the wan ports. so xxxx goes to one and xxxxx goes to do so on so on.

Not very concenred about it. Im more intrested in people having some internet access but Ill be locking down streaming, torrents, file downloads, etc.
 
Evening:

Adding on to what everyone has said, you're going to have issues with those cable modems. Comcast will not hand out 3 modems on a residential account (at least not in my region). Even if you get business grade service, you're still sharing one node for your neighborhood, building, office complex etc. A node can service several dozen to several hundred properties (houses, businesses, etc).

Depending on how your cable system is setup for your area, you may very well bring down the node to a crawl with 300 gamers trying to use the internet. Cable providers generally only supply 30-40 megabit of bandwidth per node. Even with half that number surfing or downloading I suspect you will have issues. You're essentially load balancing 3 cable modems that all connect to a single pipe.

Just some food for thought if you're dead set on using Comcast for internet.
 
Jagernaut said:
The network is fairly segmented. But how much if an improvement are we talking about going to 24 port switches? Chances are that any given game is going to have to make at least 2 hops unless all players are on the same switch.
Click to expand...

The idea is to use 100mbit access ports and 1gbit or multiple trunked 100mbit ports for the backbone back to the core switch. Putting more ports on the switch will help, since people are most likely going to be file swapping with people in their close proximity anyway, so the majority of your traffic is probably going to stay fairly local geographically, but increasing the bandwidth to the core will make it fairly difficult for the users to saturate that link, which is the real problem with your proposed setup. A single 100mbit file transfer between two users at different tables (or to a server attached to the core, to download say a large patch or game image), regardless of how many users per table, will saturate the backbone link and cause retransmissions and latency for people trying to play games across the same link.

Your core switch's backplane bandwidth is only relevant if everyone is connected directly to it; if you've got 8 users sharing a 100mbit pipe, one of those users can cripple the rest easily. You need at the very least enough bandwidth so that a single user can't saturate the uplink, but 1gbit per 24 users should be sufficient, though 2gbit would be great if you can get it (enough ports at the core - most 100mbit access switches with GigE uplink will have 2 or 4 of them). It's also nice to have at least some gigabit at your core to attach your servers to.

If you don't want to do it that way, get as many people as you can connected directly to the core switch - the 4006 can have up to 240 100mbit ports, and the line cards are cheap. Another potential 'solution' is to put each table on their own VLAN and do routing between them with QoS to limit the bandwidth between VLANs and try to prevent it from saturating the uplinks, but this is finicky, will slow your network down a lot, and really isn't necessary if you plan your setup well (unless you already bought your gear and don't have budget for anything else).

As for internet, you will probably have problems load balancing multiple connections on the same provider; have you tried this? Most load balancing gateways don't deal well if all the WANs give addresses in the same subnet with the same default gateway, and this could very well trip you up. A possible solution to this issue is to do dual NAT; put a cheap router behind each cable modem and use different 1918 subnets for each, then plug your pfSense or whatever into that. I wouldn't be so concerned about not getting your available bandwidth though; I'm not sure about Comcast, but the cable plant typically has plenty of bandwidth to go around in my experience. I'm running 2 cable modems here and can saturate them simultaneously at 25mbit each pretty much any time of day.

Also I'd look at pfSense as your gateway box, it deals with gaming well, you can f/e dedicate a modem to web and random traffic and keep the others for gaming or whatever, the routing is very flexible, plus it can handle larger subnets - though you have a layer 3 switch at your core, so you could, and arguably should, just let it route the traffic to your gateway and segment your network logically. Probably also cost you less since you hopefully wouldn't have much trouble drumming up a spare older PC. Get two of them and you might be able to finagle a CARP cluster for HA if you can figure out how to rig the WAN (again, dual NAT may be necessary here).
 
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F-it, get a 6513 catalyst with full gig blades - NOT - In all seriousness you should be fine with the switching part 10/100 if your only going to be using this for gaming on the LAN or over the internet. File sharing will be another story, 6 people sharing 200Mb of bandwidth is going to be horrendous, thats 4.1MBps best case scenario of transfer speeds, more like 2MBps on average. 5 minutes to transfer 10MB is bad.

Get yourself 12 of these 24 port trendnet switches 10/100 with 2 gigabit uplinks, you can get these for $50 if look well

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817111450

then get yourself one trendnet 16 port full gigabit 16 port switch to support your core gigabit backbone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817111471

connect your router to your distribution switch and then connect your access switches to your distribution switch, forget about the cat 4006, if you don't already have a gigabit blade on that I wouldn't bother, true gig blades cost a few thousand dollars depending on the model and amount of ports


In regards to the cable modem setup, if you have three different accounts, one for each modem you should be OK. I have a Linksys RV082 with a load balanced WAN connection using two SB5101 moto surboard modems and I have no issues. I just have to pay for two accounts to get service on both modems. I know guys who had 4-5 modems in a round-robin setup connected to a White box with PFSENSE installed and they had no issues like slowing everyone else in the neighborhood or bringing down the ISP node. Strikers109 comment on 30-40 Mb bandwidth limit is non-sense. Your ISP should be able to handle 300 users with ease. Your just limited to your overall speed constraints with three modems on three accounts. Here's an example of what I got with just two modems at my apartment

capturegub.jpg


best of luck.
 
I, like Stonecat, have done quite a few large-ish LAN parties and I've been down both roads with large switches vs many small switch layouts. I can say that, from a setup standpoint, I much preferred the many small switch method, if for no other reason than it keeps the clutter down and minimizes the use of longer (more expesive) patch cables at the tables. Also, if something happens to the switch (which it occasionally may) you only lose 6-7 players, not 24-48.

Towards the end of my LAN party days I used to use a bunch 8 port switches with gigabit uplinks. I tied them all together with a gigabit core, into which the servers also went. I thought they were D-Link but for the life of me I can't seem to find the model on the D-link website. Heck, it's been over 4 years since I sold that equipment. I think I gave about $75 each for them at the time (circa 2002). I found this but that may be more than you're willing to spend. I've never heard of TP-link, but if you're trying to build a network that avoids over-subscription, it might be worth considering.
 
I think that you and stonecat are on the same track as me. Wiring 50 small switches will be a pain. But if one goes down only a small group people are affected, and it can be swapped out cheaply. That and if 1 table is suffering horrible lag, Ill just let them know that between the 6 of them 1 of them is causing it and they can sort it out themselves.
 
crazyfinx said:
F-it, get a 6513 catalyst with full gig blades - NOT - In all seriousness you should be fine with the switching part 10/100 if your only going to be using this for gaming on the LAN or over the internet. File sharing will be another story, 6 people sharing 200Mb of bandwidth is going to be horrendous, thats 4.1MBps best case scenario of transfer speeds, more like 2MBps on average. 5 minutes to transfer 10MB is bad.

Get yourself 12 of these 24 port trendnet switches 10/100 with 2 gigabit uplinks, you can get these for $50 if look well

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817111450

then get yourself one trendnet 16 port full gigabit 16 port switch to support your core gigabit backbone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817111471

connect your router to your distribution switch and then connect your access switches to your distribution switch, forget about the cat 4006, if you don't already have a gigabit blade on that I wouldn't bother, true gig blades cost a few thousand dollars depending on the model and amount of ports


In regards to the cable modem setup, if you have three different accounts, one for each modem you should be OK. I have a Linksys RV082 with a load balanced WAN connection using two SB5101 moto surboard modems and I have no issues. I just have to pay for two accounts to get service on both modems. I know guys who had 4-5 modems in a round-robin setup connected to a White box with PFSENSE installed and they had no issues like slowing everyone else in the neighborhood or bringing down the ISP node. Strikers109 comment on 30-40 Mb bandwidth limit is non-sense. Your ISP should be able to handle 300 users with ease. Your just limited to your overall speed constraints with three modems on three accounts. Here's an example of what I got with just two modems at my apartment

capturegub.jpg


best of luck.
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Ill just let people know that file sharing is best left for when the gaming slows down in the evening. If people complain that they are suffering severe lag Ill let them its one of the 6 people on their switch and they can sort it out.
 
And don't forget to type up a list of rules...and e-mail those to everyone who will be attending. Or have them posted in the website or forum that you're advertising this LAN from. Enforce that all guests of the LAN need to read these rules before arriving at the LAN.

When we did these rules for large LAN parties...it made for a much smoother LAN party. The goal is to get everyone up and running as quick as possible. You want people to carry in their gear, with minimal disruption to the LAN party, setup, plug in..and start playing.

You don't want to get stuck having several of you have to hold your hands and babysit people spending hours getting them up and running. Everyone is there to game and have a good time, not spend hours troubleshooting/fixing.

Some examples of the rules:
*Computers set with TCP/IP set to obtain auto (you'll have a DHCP service running)
*Computers clean and malware free...you don't want some malware infested rig bringing the network to its knees and infecting other peoples computers.
*Computers protected with antivirus
*List all the games that you'll be playing, and what patch version, and what mods/paks/add-ons you'll be playing. People are responsible for having all of this downloaded and installed on their rigs BEFORE arriving at the LAN
*Small speakers or headsets, NO big surround sound systems, no idiots with blarking Klippish surround speakers trying to be louder than everyone else.
*Bring your own surge protectors/APC units
*Bring your own patch cables to plug into the switch
*Nice to have a few people show up with extension cords
*No file sharing
*No torrents/p2p crap killing the network, we're here to game, not swap warez and bring down the network.

Some good tips for the LAN party hosts...
*High performance server(s) for a LAN party this large, I'm a fan of SCSI drives over SATA for game servers running several game instances. They deal with concurrent hits a lot better.
*Server operating system...Windows Server deals with concurrent connections a heck of a lot better than a desktop OS. Or of course..*Nix if you games server components support it.
*Server grade NICs...they deal with heavy loads a heck of a lot better than a little desktop grade NIC
*Important...battery backups for your server(s) and core switch. I've found out at a few large LAN parties we've done..even when we've rented large convention rooms at big hotel chains like a Marriot...we've tripped the breakers a few times. Sucks having a server basically have the cord pulled from it several times in a row and you find yourself running drive repairs to boot up again. We even had a big Cisco Cat switch tank once from this..took the guy who brought it like an hour to get her up again.
*Lock down your server...don't leave the Administrator account blank. And if you feel you must have some shares on it..make them read only. There's always at least one clown at a LAN who goes around the network looking for some rigs to bust into and mess with.
 
I meant to post this last night from my phone, but then gave up and went to bed. There is a guide on pfsense about multiple wans for a lan party.

Crap I can't find it anymore they changed their wiki around and I stopped using pfsense a while ago. Here is the multiwan with load balancing.. I remember they had like 5 wan nics in this thing with 5 dsl connections load balanced for use in this lan party. If someone finds the real guide tell me so i can bookmark it

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-WAN_Version_1.2.x
 
calvinj said:
I meant to post this last night from my phone, but then gave up and went to bed. There is a guide on pfsense about multiple wans for a lan party.

Crap I can't find it anymore they changed their wiki around and I stopped using pfsense a while ago. Here is the multiwan with load balancing.. I remember they had like 5 wan nics in this thing with 5 dsl connections load balanced for use in this lan party. If someone finds the real guide tell me so i can bookmark it

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-WAN_Version_1.2.x
Click to expand...

This is the doc that calvinj was talking about...

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-WAN_using_VLANs_with_pfSense
 
An efficient LAN is an efficient LAN, it doesn't matter if itis gaming or an enterprise network.

Why were you recommended a 48-port switch is beyond me, a managed switch would be more ideal, then you can assign a VLAN for each table, if you want. The weakiest link will be the last switch in the line that connects to the Internet or to an outside network. 300 persons, is not a lot of load for gigabit switches. I do not know what equipment you have at your disposal or if you have money to buy switches or what not, but your design is not ideal.

If you put network drops for each table for each computer and had them plug into a switch or switches then you had an upload switch that plugs into the Internet or another network, then that would be ideal, and also a lot cheaper.
 
horndog said:
An efficient LAN is an efficient LAN, it doesn't matter if itis gaming or an enterprise network.

Why were you recommended a 48-port switch is beyond me, a managed switch would be more ideal, then you can assign a VLAN for each table, if you want. The weakiest link will be the last switch in the line that connects to the Internet or to an outside network. 300 persons, is not a lot of load for gigabit switches. I do not know what equipment you have at your disposal or if you have money to buy switches or what not, but your design is not ideal.

If you put network drops for each table for each computer and had them plug into a switch or switches then you had an upload switch that plugs into the Internet or another network, then that would be ideal, and also a lot cheaper.
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vlans for a LAN party aren't usually that useful and actually introduce problems as most PC games find servers on the LAN via broadcasts which the vlans will break up.

Some games also have problems working with any thing larger then a /24 and they just assume the network isn't any larger. I've not dealt with consoles that much but I would assume they have the same limitations when it comes to segmenting the LAN as I'm sure they use broadcast or multicast to locate each other.
 
Every table on a vlan as mentioned, is a no-no. Only lans 3-4k+ would you want to have segregation due to the amount of broadcasts.

Most common large lan setup, 24 port 100mbit switchs with single gig-e up to a core switch. Allows the most amount of bandwidth with the least amount of cables.

For 300 persons, you will pretty much be required to have traffic shaping on your internet connection(s). Otherwise "that guy over there" will run torrents (no matter how much you say not to) and ruin the internet. Pfsense w/ included packet filter will do the job. Standalone if you want to be more anal.

Ebay is your friend in finding cost effective table switches, managed is nice to be able to turn off the second gig-e port.
 
My vote is for a 6509 with Sup720s.

/thread

Seriously though Cat 4006s are ancient POSs. I'd rather have a low-density gigabit (cat 3550 or better) multilayer switch as the "core" with 2 gigabit etherchannel links to each access switch which could be 24-48 ports or so as needs require for some cheap redundancy. Make each access switch it's own network to segment broadcast traffic and minimize the traffic that traverses the core.

300 users is really not that many. LAN speeds won't be a concern.
 
One thing to keep in mind, you don't need cisco hardware for lans. Nor do you even need L3 core for a 300 person lan. The network this small doesnt need to be segregated either.


Also curious where this lan will be.
 
mattjw916 said:
My vote is for a 6509 with Sup720s.

/thread

Seriously though Cat 4006s are ancient POSs. I'd rather have a low-density gigabit (cat 3550 or better) multilayer switch as the "core" with 2 gigabit etherchannel links to each access switch which could be 24-48 ports or so as needs require for some cheap redundancy. Make each access switch it's own network to segment broadcast traffic and minimize the traffic that traverses the core.

300 users is really not that many. LAN speeds won't be a concern.
Click to expand...
dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. :rolleyes:.... 720Gbps for a 300 person LAN party. wow.

You would rather have a 3550 over a 4006? Yeaaaaaaah..... dual 12Gbps backplane rings on the 3550 vs 64Gbps forwarding out of a 4006 w/ SUP IV.... good call :eek: Even the SUP III engine will forward more traffic than the 3550.

OP, stick with the 4006 for port density and SPEED... config up some ingress qos policies and you'll be alright.
 
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xphil3 said:
dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. :rolleyes:.... 720Gbps for a 300 person LAN party. wow.

You would rather have a 3550 over a 4006? Yeaaaaaaah..... dual 12Gbps backplane rings on the 3550 vs 64Gbps forwarding out of a 4006 w/ SUP IV.... good call :eek: Even the SUP III engine will forward more traffic than the 3550.

OP, stick with the 4006 for port density and SPEED... config up some ingress qos policies and you'll be alright.
Click to expand...

Not everyone has the same luck you do getting a 4000 lol
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