Network Requirements for DebConf

This page exists to document the requirements for a DebConf network to an outsider.

We’d suggest that you use this as a starting-point to write up your specific event needs (name rooms, dates, etc.) and share that with the venue network team.

Definitions

Parts of the event

The Camp

The informal “camp” that precedes The Conference held on FIXME through FIXME through. Expected attendees: ~100, with the earliest arriving 2 days (FIXME) before the start of the camp, to prepare The Camp and The Conference for the arrival of the other attendees.

The Conference

The formal conference held FIXME through FIXME. Expected attendees: ~250 (FIXME), with the latest attendees departing on the day after the end of the conference.

Teams

The Front Desk Team

The set of conference organisers that provide attendee-facing camp/conference administration services. Contact Person is FIXME.

The Infrastructure Team

The set of conference organisers responsible for arranging for the resources necessary to satisfy the network and computing requirements of The Conference. Contact Person is FIXME.

The Video Team

The set of conference organisers that operate The Video Infrastructure. Contact Person is FIXME.

Venues

The Hack Labs

Rooms dedicated to collaborative project work. We are planning to use FIXME as hack labs. Some of these (FIXME) will be open 24/7.

The Videoed Talk Rooms

The (usually) 3 lecture theatres that the main (video recorded) conference events are held in. We are planning to use FIXME as the talk rooms.

The BoF Rooms

Meeting rooms used by conference attendees during The Conference. We are planning to use FIXME.

The Front Desk

The registration desk and attendee assistance desk for the conference, run by The Front Desk Team.

The NOC

A room that The Infrastructure Team uses as a work area to set up equipment. We are planning to use FIXME.

The Video Team Room

The NOC equivalent for The Video Team. Can be co-located with The NOC, given sufficient space. Needs access to The Video Network.

The Server Room

A room that The Infrastructure Team has access to (ideally 24/7), hosting conference server infrastructure. This can be a traditional server room or simply a room corner of The NOC / The Video Team Room, given sufficient network connectivity, power, and cooling. Equipment can also be split across physical rooms.

Infrastructure

The Internet

The outside Internet. Attendees need no access to the venue’s Intranet.

The DHCP & DNS Server

A machine in The Server Room that provides DHCP and DNS service for the conference’s networks.

The Local Mirror Server

A machine in The Server Room that provides a local copy of the full Debian archive, should we elect to deploy one. The next closest full mirror is FIXME, if we don’t deploy a local mirror, this will be getting a lot of traffic from our attendees.

The Local Video Storage Server

A machine in The Server Room that provides sufficient storage space to store the entire conference’s recorded HD video. This HD video is transferred to the The Local Video Storage Server from The Videography Equipment in The Videoed Talk Rooms when talks aren’t happening.

The Video Distribution Network

A network of video relays, hosted around the world (provided by The Video Team). Remote attendees watch live streams of the conference through this distribution network. The Video Distribution Network receives a feed from The Video Streaming Backend Server.

The Video Streaming Backend Server

A machine in The Server Room that receives live video streams from The Videography Equipment in The Videoed Talk Rooms, transcodes to several formats and relays to The Local Video Streaming Frontend Server for local attendees and to The Video Distribution Network for remote attendees.

The Local Video Streaming Frontend Server

A machine in The Server Room that provides local attendees with live video streams of the presentations underway in The Videoed Talk Rooms. A mirror of The Video Streaming Backend Server’s feeds.

The Video Transcoding Server

One or more machines in The Server Room that transcodes recorded HD video for publication to The Public Video Archive.

The Public Video Archive

The (off-campus) permanent archive of all of The Conference’s videos.

The WiFi Network

The WiFi network (SSID), for attendees of The Camp and The Conference. Covering The Videoed Talk Rooms, The Hack Labs, The BoF Rooms, attendee accommodation, dining areas, The Front Desk, and public spaces used by attendees. (FIXME locations).

The Attendee Wired Network

The VLAN / Network, for attendees of The Camp and The Conference, in hacklabs.

The Video Network

The dedicated VLAN / Network, for The Videography Equipment to communicate with The Local Video Storage Server and The Video Streaming Backend Server.

The Video Infrastructure

The set of equipment consisting of The Local Video Storage Server, The Video Distribution Network, The Video Streaming Backend Server, The Local Video Streaming Frontend Server, The Video Transcoding Servers and The Videography Equipment.

The Videography Equipment

The equipment in The Videoed Talk Rooms that will be used to record the presentations in HD video. Usually split into two islands in the room: a video team desk at the rear, and the podium in the front.

Network Requirements

Communication

When working with existing networks, The Infrastructure Team and The Video Team need a technical contact (a network admin) who can be present during the conference. Ideally on weekends and after hours, too. We’ll happily sponsor their attendance and food during the conference.

Attendees

IP Address Allocation and Firewall Configuration

Attendees do not require public IP addresses. Inbound connections from the Internet to Attendees may be filtered, per venue network policies. Outbound connections to The Internet from attendees should not be filtered. Ideally, attendees will be offered both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity.

A single VLAN can be used for both The WiFi Network and The Attendee Wired Network.

The DHCP & DNS Server can be used to SNAT all attendee network traffic, or this could be done elsewhere if more convenient.

A /24 IPv4 block is not big enough for the attendee networks, but a /22 should be sufficient.

Wireless

Ideally we’d provide Authenticated (PSK) access to The WiFi Network permitting attendees machines to reach both the The Internet, The Local Video Streaming Frontend Server, and The Local Mirror Server. The SSID should be accessible from FIXME (The first organiser arrivals to The Camp) until FIXME (the departure day from The Conference).

It would also be acceptable, but less desirable, to provide Individual generic access tokens for access to The WiFi Network with said tokens provided to the conference organisers by FIXME (well before the start of The Camp). There would need to uncapped, and useable by multiple devices per attendee, without needing frequent re-authentication.

Observations regarding The WiFi Network:

  • This is a high-tech community. We anticipate that attendees will have between two and three devices, each.

  • We recommend having >= 4 dual-band APs in each Videoed Talk Room and Hack Lab.

  • Attendees won’t just be surfing the web during talks, but will be writing and testing code, all over the venue. This means a fair amount of download traffic from The Local Mirror Server and The Internet.

  • Attendees will be using unusual Internet protocols, including a lot of ssh, IRC, and UDP.

Wired

To foster collaboration on specific projects, rooms have been assigned to serve as The Hack Labs.

While most attendees will use The WiFi Network in The Hack Labs, wired connectivity is useful for some embedded development work, and large downloads.

There should be Unauthenticated access to The Attendee Wired Network permitting attendees machines to connect with each other (no internal filtering), to connect to The Local Video Streaming Frontend Server, and to The Internet (outbound only, if necessary).

The venue or The Infrastructure Team can provide local switches (FIXME?) in each room but require two wired ports, with BPDU guard turned off. It is anticipated that there will be many attendees wishing to work from The Hack Labs so sufficient IP addresses must be made available.

Infrastructure

IP Address Allocation and Firewall Configuration

Ideally, the servers will be offered both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity.

The following machines should have Publicly accessible IP addresses:

All of the conference’s servers hosted in The Server Room should have un-firewalled access from The WiFi Network and The Attendee Wired Network.

The following TCP ports should be accessible from The Internet:

Some additional firewall changes may need to be made during the event.

The Video Network

Presentations delivered in The Videoed Talk Rooms will be videoed in HD and transcoded to a number of streaming formats to provide local and non-local viewers with live video streams.

High throughput / low latency / QoS-enabled wired connections are required between The Videography Equipment (located in The Videoed Talk Rooms) and The Local Video Storage Server, The Video Streaming Backend Server, The Local Video Streaming Frontend Server, and The Video Transcoding Server (located in The Server Room).

If these connections are between buildings, there must be sufficient bandwidth (1 Gbps for each of The Videoed Talk Rooms) between The Videoed Talk Rooms and The Server Room for the video streams and copying recordings.

Within The Videoed Talk Rooms, there must be gigabit connectivity between the front and back of the room (The Videography Equipment islands).

This can be provided by running a cable within the room, and having a gigabit switch connected to the room’s uplink port (which would then need no BDPU).

Ideally The Local Video Storage Server would have a 10Gbps connection to the core network.

Example Ideal setup

What has worked well for us in the past is to have 3 VLANs:

  1. Public IPs for servers (something like a /28).

  2. Attendee LAN (WiFi and wired), on an RFC 1819 /16

  3. Video LAN. RFC 1819 /24

The DHCP & DNS server can sit on all 3 networks and allocate addresses.

Either the venue can provide a gateway that does routing between networks (and NAT for Attendee and video). Or given a multi-gigabit link to The DHCP & DNS server, we can handle this.

Optional Requirements

The DHCP & DNS Server

We have successfully used DHCP and DNS service provided by the venue, in the past, for attendee wired and wireless internet. The Video Network needs its own DHCP and DNS, though.

The Local Mirror Server

Given sufficient connectivity (or another on-campus mirror), we don’t need to host our own mirror.

The Video Transcoding Server

Given sufficient CPU capacity on the storage server, transcoding servers may not be needed. But they are usually desirable.

The WiFi Network

Given a suitable guest-friendly network, we don’t need our own SSID. However, this network should not have any ports firewalled, and ideally not require any registration.

The Attendee Wired Network

Similarly, a dedicated wired network may not be necessary, given the right policies on an existing wired network.