lan party LAN Party NOC

[tt2468]

I am organising a somewhat large LAN party in SoCal with a frien, and I just put together the NOC from parts I had. Here are the pictures:

The front of the NOC box. I made the rackmount box for my QSC amplifier, but I don't really do Pro audio anymore, so I reused it!

I'm using an old WatchGuard X550e as the router/firewall. The default OS is just fine for basic functions, though I might do the BIOS upgrade to support PFSense in the future. Below the firebox is an old Dell PowerConnect 3448 that I had laying around. I have it as just a dumb switch right now, because I don't have the correct serial cable to configure it.

Here is the back of the NOC. When I put together the box, I only had outlet PowerCon connectors, so I used that. I ordered the correct power in connectors to replace the ones you see in the picture. The hole on the right is from the PowerCon connector that went to my old audio mixer. I took it out for now, as I won't be mixing much audio with routers and switches.

 

So in my effort to keep myself away from boredom, what should I do with this box to improve it? I have 1 more u of space I can fill. Maybe I could but a patch panel in? What are your thoughts?

 

[dlink377]

Wow, the setup seems so overkill for just a LAN party. However, I really like the idea to overkill something simple, it gives some satisfying feel.

 

This is for what kind of LAN party? What kind of games?

 

If I ever had lan party, I probably will just bring a cheapest shit switch i can get and bring a cheap router just for DHCP purposes.

[tt2468]

7 minutes ago, dlink377 said:

Wow, the setup seems so overkill for just a LAN party. However, I really like the idea to overkill something simple, it gives some satisfying feel.

 

This is for what kind of LAN party? What kind of games?

 

If I ever had lan party, I probably will just bring a cheapest shit switch i can get and bring a cheap router just for DHCP purposes.

I plan to be able to bring this box to any event center, hook up to wan, and run ethernet out to switches/computers. The main game we intend to play are CS:GO, GMOD, and some Minecraft. I have a couple servers that would go seperate with this box.

[brwainer]

I don't know if that firewall has any mass storage inside (HDD or SSD) or space for one, but if it doesn't, you could add a 1U server for HTTP caching. 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, dlink377 said:

Wow, the setup seems so overkill for just a LAN party. However, I really like the idea to overkill something simple, it gives some satisfying feel.

 

Hahaha you should see what Respawn LAN get out for their LAN's - 10 and 40gig everywhere

[tt2468]

3 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Hahaha you should see what Respawn LAN get out for their LAN's - 10 and 40gig everywhere

Well then I could get an r210 II with a dual port qsfp+ card and a Quanta LB6M switch. 24 SFP+ ports and qsfp+ for uplink. It would still put me at under 2k. I could get Quanta LB4M's for distrobution to different sections. All VLANed too.

[KuJoe]

This is what I use for my LAN parties: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZWOQZ6

 

I guess I need more friends.

[KuJoe]

7 hours ago, brwainer said:

I don't know if that firewall has any mass storage inside (HDD or SSD) or space for one, but if it doesn't, you could add a 1U server for HTTP caching. 

I would replace the hardware firewall with a ClearOS install with the HTTP caching enabled, best of both worlds and it can do a lot more (like a NFS/SAMBA/FTP share for game repos or screenshot uploads or something).

[tt2468]

2 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I would replace the hardware firewall with a ClearOS install with the HTTP caching enabled, best of both worlds and it can do a lot more (like a NFS/SAMBA/FTP share for game repos or screenshot uploads or something).

It's not even hardware accelerated. It's literally just a server with a celeron and 4 broadcom NICs. I used it because it is rackmount and is badass as hell.

[KuJoe]

5 minutes ago, tt2468 said:

It's not even hardware accelerated. It's literally just a server with a celeron and 4 broadcom NICs. I used it because it is rackmount and is badass as hell.

Exactly why I would replace it with something with more functionality. I'm not knocking your selection I'm just saying what I would do differently.

[tt2468]

2 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Exactly why I would replace it with something with more functionality. I'm not knocking your selection I'm just saying what I would do differently.

Ya. I'm more of a PFSense guy, though if I had the choice, I would go with an edgerouter 8 or Pro.