Gerry - Ethernet and controller setup

[gerry]

This thread has prompted me to think about how I need to be setting up my network for this year.
Last year I had a separate show network , which was not connected to the internet and not connected to my home network , because I did not want anything from the home network/home people/ affecting the show !
I ran the show using LSP off a standalone laptop
I have tried to document the setup in the attached pdf - Existing Network

This year , I have a Raspberry Pi with the Falcon player as a Master to run the show.

I also have a BBB driving P10 panels with the Falcon Player as a slave.

The BBB/Panels are at one end of the house and therefore I plan to use a Wifi enabled BBB to link to the Raspberry PI master . Both of them need to be connected to the internet so as to obtain the proper time 9as there is no onboard clock) and be able to see each other so that the master can send synch packets to the slave to run the same sequence on both at the same time.

Reading through various posts , I believe that I will need to replace the show router (which has no Wifi), with a new Wifi enabled show router , connect it to my home router (LAN port to LAN port) and at the same time change the IP addresses of everything to do with the show setup (ie all controllers, PI, BBB) to be a different subnet to the home network. (See attached network Setup New)

Is this correct and the simplest/best implementation ?

 

[AussiePhil]

Firstly - Gerry, sorry split to own topic as this will generate multiple answers, slpit from http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php?topic=7627.new;topicseen#new

 

[AussiePhil]

as for the New network layout it hinges on how Master Slave FP units sync up.

It is my understanding only the Master FP unit needs to be time synced and if so you could just wifi the master FP to your home wifi and get internet access.

 

[damona]

Or buy a clock for the Pi with a battery

 

[gerry]

as for the New network layout it hinges on how Master Slave FP units sync up.

It is my understanding only the Master FP unit needs to be time synced and if so you could just wifi the master FP to your home wifi and get internet access.

Hi Phil,

The BBB needs to have wireless as it will drive the panels inside a window which is quite far from the rest of the items , else I will have to run a CAT5 cable all the way to it. Yes I don't think it needs to have the clock.

I think I could connect the master Pi to the existing (non wireless) show router and have that router hardwired to the home network, which would give me the required internet access for the network time (I think) - that is what I am trying out now whilst I figure out the permutations required to get FP working with wireless and wired connections and multisynch ... but long term was not sure if that was the correct implementation especially re your question on security and other posts on multicast/flooding - the implications both of which I don't really understand.

 

[B_P_J]

Hey Gerry, maybe a silly question but does your PC have dual NIC's (Network Connections) if not you can get really cheap pci ones, because you could segregate the 2 networks using it and just install a simple SNTP piece of software (like NetTime) on your PC and set your Pi to timesync which does sync to the internet with that, this way no outside network reaches your christmas network....
Not sure if this will work, i may need to boot up the Pi and look, but from the sound of it i think it might,
Hope this gives maybe a little bit of an idea... maybe....

Edit: Ok so yes it looks like you can do this, i have been playing around with the SSH shell on the Pi, took me a little while and need more testing but looking positive so far..

 

[gerry]

Hey Gerry, maybe a silly question but does your PC have dual NIC's (Network Connections)

Hi , I was hoping to keep it simple and not use a PC at all this year other than for the sequencing. So run the show off the PI connected to the controllers and the p10 panels of a BBB using the falcon player multi synch capability.

Separate subnets for show and home networks. I don't understand why , but almost all posts where there are examples on configs have them that way , so that's how I have just set them up.

 

[RiverBendLights]

not sure if this is similar to what I want to do, but I wanted to know how to run the show network on my home network so any PC in the house could control the show

 

[multicast]

You don't "have" to connect to the internet to get time. You can create your own time service. A beagle bone black and a GPS make a very good stratum 1 time service.


Get one of these


http://www.adafruit.com/product/746


and attach it like this;


http://blog.dan.drown.org/beaglebone-black-ntpgps-server/


Its on my list of things to do, to make a cape for this..