[pfSense Support] Success Story
It seems like there are always questions and/or complaints on this list, so I just wanted to share a success story. We just returned (this weekend) from running the PC gaming network at Penny Arcade eXpo's west coast event. This is a rather high profile event attended by 60,000+ people, with the PC gaming room being divided into two sections - PC Freeplay, with Intel powered machines donated by Intel themselves, and BYOC, which is more like a regular LAN party where people bring their own rigs. They both share a common internal network (/22) so that they can play games with eachother. One of the major issues this event has always faced is bandwidth. The convention center's bandwidth is extraordinarily expensive, so the event is only able to afford a 45Mbps connection (for 500-600 gaming PC's). This connection has to support regular web browsing, email, IM, etc, as well as game traffic AND game patch traffic (ala Steam and Battle.NET). Further complicating matters, at some points, there are also video streams and tournaments with real money riding on them, which have to run smoothly. Up till now, this has always been accomplished with traffic shaper rules, but these are complex, and difficult to explain to others. They're also not easy to adjust in an adhoc manner. This year, we tried out the bandwidth limiter feature, and basically created different buckets for the protocols and ports we wanted to allow. This made it extremely easy to make sure that there was ALWAYS bandwidth available for the PC attached to a projector showing a video stream, and that the people playing in the Starcraft 2 tournament had enough bandwidth to log on. It was easy to tweak and adjust as the demands evolved. So, to whoever built that feature- THANK YOU! My one bit of feedback: The 'Limiter Info' page is currently *very* hard to decipher. It would be quite nice if there was a readily available breakdown (maybe in graph form, too?) of the different limiters and their utilization. But again, thank you. This, and the layer-7 rules, rock! Pics (apologies for the shameless plug - it's the only location that I have them available at): http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150348477738933.398042.102500853932 PS - you can't see it due to the contrast, but on the picture with the rack and monitor, that monitor was showing the realtime bandwidth utilization (the SVG graph thingy), and people seemed to think that was pretty neat! PPS - Oh, here's one where you CAN see it, kinda: http://hphotos-snc7.fbcdn.net/322411_10150348722388933_102500853932_9609136_7921564_o.jpg Best Regards, Nathan Eisenberg - To unsubscribe, e-mail: support-unsubscr...@pfsense.com For additional commands, e-mail: support-h...@pfsense.com Commercial support available - https://portal.pfsense.org
Re: [pfSense Support] Success Story
On 8/30/2011 8:21 PM, Nathan Eisenberg wrote: > It seems like there are always questions and/or complaints on this list, so I > just wanted to share a success story. > > We just returned (this weekend) from running the PC gaming network at Penny > Arcade eXpo's west coast event. This is a rather high profile event attended > by 60,000+ people, with the PC gaming room being divided into two sections - > PC Freeplay, with Intel powered machines donated by Intel themselves, and > BYOC, which is more like a regular LAN party where people bring their own > rigs. They both share a common internal network (/22) so that they can play > games with eachother. Awesome! > One of the major issues this event has always faced is bandwidth. The > convention center's bandwidth is extraordinarily expensive, so the event is > only able to afford a 45Mbps connection (for 500-600 gaming PC's). This > connection has to support regular web browsing, email, IM, etc, as well as > game traffic AND game patch traffic (ala Steam and Battle.NET). Further > complicating matters, at some points, there are also video streams and > tournaments with real money riding on them, which have to run smoothly. > Up till now, this has always been accomplished with traffic shaper rules, but > these are complex, and difficult to explain to others. They're also not easy > to adjust in an adhoc manner. This year, we tried out the bandwidth limiter > feature, and basically created different buckets for the protocols and ports > we wanted to allow. This made it extremely easy to make sure that there was > ALWAYS bandwidth available for the PC attached to a projector showing a video > stream, and that the people playing in the Starcraft 2 tournament had enough > bandwidth to log on. It was easy to tweak and adjust as the demands evolved. > So, to whoever built that feature- THANK YOU! Yes the limiters are a very easy way to setup containers for bandwidth and impose limits for a group or per-IP limits as well. Some (like you) have found it an easier alternative to achieving bandwidth guarantees than traditional shaping rules, and they fill in a few gaps where those make things difficult/impossible. > My one bit of feedback: The 'Limiter Info' page is currently *very* hard to > decipher. It would be quite nice if there was a readily available breakdown > (maybe in graph form, too?) of the different limiters and their utilization. That might be doable for the future. It being a new feature things are still a little rough in the reporting department. We are moving to jQuery for pfSense 2.1 so I imagine someone will turn up a nice graphing widget we can use to make that a bit easier to read. > Pics (apologies for the shameless plug - it's the only location that I have > them available at): > http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150348477738933.398042.102500853932 > > PS - you can't see it due to the contrast, but on the picture with the rack > and monitor, that monitor was showing the realtime bandwidth utilization (the > SVG graph thingy), and people seemed to think that was pretty neat! > PPS - Oh, here's one where you CAN see it, kinda: > http://hphotos-snc7.fbcdn.net/322411_10150348722388933_102500853932_9609136_7921564_o.jpg The real time graphs are always a hit. :-) Thanks for sharing! Jim - To unsubscribe, e-mail: support-unsubscr...@pfsense.com For additional commands, e-mail: support-h...@pfsense.com Commercial support available - https://portal.pfsense.org
Re: [pfSense Support] Success Story
That looked like a great event! What kind of hardware was pfsense running on? Vassilis - To unsubscribe, e-mail: support-unsubscr...@pfsense.com For additional commands, e-mail: support-h...@pfsense.com Commercial support available - https://portal.pfsense.org
Re: [pfSense Support] Success Story
On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Nathan Eisenberg wrote: > > Pics (apologies for the shameless plug - it's the only location that I have > them available at): > > http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150348477738933.398042.102500853932 > Which feature of pfSense allows switches to defy gravity? (picture 18) Great shots and looks like you guy all had a great time "working" at the event.
Re: [pfSense Support] Success Story
LOL Maybe the patches, but i can't see the the most stretched one! :-) il giorno 01/set/2011, alle ore 17:10, Conor Klecker ha scritto: > On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Nathan Eisenberg > wrote: > > Pics (apologies for the shameless plug - it's the only location that I have > them available at): > http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150348477738933.398042.102500853932 > > Which feature of pfSense allows switches to defy gravity? (picture 18) > > > Great shots and looks like you guy all had a great time "working" at the > event.
[pfSense Support] Success story: IBM Netvista ThinClient N2800 + pfsense
Hi pfsense community, just wanted to share my success with you. I just set up my router with an old IBM Netvista Thinclient N2800. (I know there is already a working config in the Wiki but not mine) Details about the box are here (NOT my site): http://www.gilanet.com/Ohlandl/8364/8364_netvista.html I use the router for private internet access only. In my small village (north of germany, 52° 51′ N, 10° 25′ O) we only get 384kbit DSL (broadband!!, *sic*). So I ordered two lines and with the help of pfsense I now can do load balancing. 2 * noname PCI NICs for WAN, internal NIC for LAN. PFsense 1.2 Kind Regards, Ruediger G. Biernat - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [pfSense Support] Success story: IBM Netvista ThinClient N2800 + pfsense
Congratulations on a working installation! It is nice to hear success stories about pfSense on the mailing list as we usually only hear about problems. :-) Tim Nelson Systems/Network Support Rockbochs Inc. - Original Message - From: "\"Rüdiger G. Biernat\"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: support@pfsense.com Sent: Tuesday, April 8, 2008 11:36:58 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central Subject: [pfSense Support] Success story: IBM Netvista ThinClient N2800 + pfsense Hi pfsense community, just wanted to share my success with you. I just set up my router with an old IBM Netvista Thinclient N2800. (I know there is already a working config in the Wiki but not mine) Details about the box are here (NOT my site): http://www.gilanet.com/Ohlandl/8364/8364_netvista.html I use the router for private internet access only. In my small village (north of germany, 52° 51′ N, 10° 25′ O) we only get 384kbit DSL (broadband!!, *sic*). So I ordered two lines and with the help of pfsense I now can do load balancing. 2 * noname PCI NICs for WAN, internal NIC for LAN. PFsense 1.2 Kind Regards, Ruediger G. Biernat - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
