1. Vojisto: A Linux distribution for flash party network routers Colin Dean Colin Dean

2. Vojisto ● Vojisto means router in Esperanto – voj/o route, -ist/o one who does ● Uses Linux as operating system ● Boots from removable media – CD, USB drive ● Provides required and convenient services for proper flash party network operation

3. What is a flash party network? ● Subset of flash network – Network rapidly assembled by more than a small number of people – Subset of flash crowd ● A sudden but planned gathering of a large number of people

4. What subset does flash party networks include? ● Network is wired ● Network is arranged in a star topology ● Network uses Ethernet standards ● Network uses IP protocols ● All connected hosts must use DHCP ● All connected switches must pass signals up/down unless signal is local to the switch ● Hardware to be connected to the network is unknown – Safe to assume, though, that all connected devices will be either switches or hosts.

5. Possible supported languages ● Vojisto will need a scripting language to interact with the system via the web interface. ● Possibilities – Scheme ● As cool as it would be to use it, I fear that I may not be adept enough to use it efficiently for Vojisto. Although it occupies little disk space, it has a large memory footprint. – Python ● Python has a built-in HTTPd. However, Python occupies a large amount of disk space and can take up a large amount of memory. – PHP ● With the introduction of PHP5, many people have written HTTPds and other software, such as the needed DC++ hub, in PHP. Also, PHP has a very small disk space footprint and its memory usage can be adjusted.

6. Research ● I have found very little scholarly research on router distributions in general, let alone the subset of possible networks I intend to service. ● The papers I have found which are at least somewhat related to my project generally deal with Internet flash crowd mitigation or are how-tos for a certain router distribution.

7. Main points of research ● Building a Live distribution – A distribution that does not to be installed to the hard drive – Building your own live CD by Daniel Barlow, Linux Journal, April 2005. Page 2. – Linux in Education: Maragda: Running Linux from CD by Jordi Battaler, Linux Journal, March 2001.

8. Main points of research, part II ● Using/running from RAMdisk – Main goal—and quality that separates Vojisto from Devil Linux—is that it will be able to run entirely from RAM – How to use a Ramdisk for Linux by Mark Nielson. Linux Focus, July 2001. – Linux Ramdisk mini-HOWTO by Van Emery – Linux EMBEDDING mini-HOWTO by Luc Hermans

9. Configuration documents ● DNSMasq (DNS and DHCP server) – In a DNS bind? Get out with DNSMasq http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351 http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351 – DNSMasq official documentation http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/ http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/ ● iptables and NAT (network address translation) – IP Masquerading using iptables by Eli Billauer http://www.billauer.co.il/ipmasq-html.html http://www.billauer.co.il/ipmasq-html.html – Official HOWTO for NAT using iptables http://www.netfilter.org/documentation/HOWTO//NAT-HOWTO.html http://www.netfilter.org/documentation/HOWTO//NAT-HOWTO.html – Using Linux iptables or ipchains to set up an internet gateway / firewall / router for home or office http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialIptablesNetworkGateway.html http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialIptablesNetworkGateway.html

10. Configuration, part II ● DC++ – DC++ wiki http://dcpp.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://dcpp.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ● PHP – Official PHP Manual http://www.php.net/manual/en/ http://www.php.net/manual/en/ ● SSH – Dropbear http://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html http://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html

11. Tangential Research ● Flash crowd mitigation via adaptive admission control based on application-level observations – Source: ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, August 2005. Pages 532-569. Authors: Xuan Chen and John Heidemann ● FCAN: Flash Crowds Alleviation Network – Source: Symposium on Applied Computing/Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing, 2006. Pages 758-765. Authors: Pan et al. ● Network security laboratories using SmoothWall – Source: Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, October 2005. Pages 41-49. Authors: Jason Kretzer and Charles E. Frank ● The Slashdot Effect: An Analysis of Three Internet Publications – Source: Brookhaven National laboratory Author: Stephen Alder ● Female Factory - The Flash Mob! – Source: Colonial Times, March 10, 1840. Page 5, column 3. Author: unavailable ● A lightweight, robust P2P system to handle flash crowds – Source: ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communcation Review, July 2002. Page 17. Authors: Angelos Stavrou, Dan Rubenstein, and Sambit Sahu