puppet-lanserver

Puppet module to fully deploy all neccesarry services to run a LAN party at any size with ease

The following components are included

• DHCP - Dnsmasq
• DNS - Dnsmasq
• FTP Server for easy user uploads - vsftpd
• BitTorrent tracker - opentracker
• Torrent Client - transmission
• Webserver - Apache httpd
• IRC Server ngircd
• IRC Webgui kiwiirc
• inotify-tools
• self-written bash scripts
  • monitor the upload directory of the FTP Server and create a torrent from it (inotify2announce)
  • creating a torrent including information on the LAN website (add_game.sh)
  • cleanup old torrents and whitelist only available torrents from the website

Features

• Automatically deploy an environment for a LAN party. Provide all neccesary network services and client tools via http
• Share prepared games via torrent. Use a easy-to-use script add_game.shto create an entry in your webservers /games.html and add a local file or directory.
• Users can upload an archive via FTP and the server creates a torrent file for it and shares the content with with it’s own client.
• Create your own Games list with a simple bash script add_game.sh. It automatically generates an entry in your webservers /games.html.
  The template directory for every game is located in /var/www/template.

Requirements

• CentOS >= 7, Other distributions will be supported in the future.
• Puppet >= 4, The install script for CentOS/RHEL will include puppet 5.
• an internet connection (to install the packages from the bash script).
• Enough disk space for the torrent contents. Depends on how much you want
  to serve.

Everything data-related is located somewhere in /var by default. So it’s recommended that you add an additional partition mounted on /var.

Caution

Please don’t start the dnsmasq server in a network, which already has a DHCP server. Things could go wrong.
And the hole torrent tracker part doesn’t working without DNS.

Setting the language

The lanserver website is currently available in two languages.
To switch it edit the lanserver/manifests/params.pp lang parameter and reapply the module to the server.

translate the website

If you want to translate the website, copy the en directory in lanserver/files/webroot/ and translate the whole content of index.html, torrent.html and tech.html.
You also need to add language vars to lanserver/manifests/webroot.pp for your specific language code. Two letters are allowed.

Enable or disable specific services

Every service mentioned above can be managed independently. Enable or disable the services via lanserver/manifests/params,pp

Usage / Installation

1. Download the code to your server. For example with git.git clone --recursive https://github.com/pseiler/puppet-lanserver
2. Change into the puppet module directory cd lanserver/manifests
3. Edit the lanserver/manifests/params.pp to the values you like. This includes the admin account name and password, the server configuration, the device you want to configure your listening services, …
   Don’t forget to set the right interface found from ip addr show.
4. Change back into the puppet-lanserver directory. Run bash install_server.sh as root.
   • This script adds every requirement and installs every server component enabled by a a simple puppet lanserver/manifests/params.pp parameter.
   • If the script runs successfully every service should be running except dnsmasq.
5. Reboot your system when the script successfully deployed the puppet module. Caution! The DHCP Server starts after the next reboot.

Verifying everything is running

This lanserver features serveral type of services.
To have an easy overview if everything is running,
run lanserver status on the command line
To stop/start everything use
lanserver start
or
lanserver stop

Controlling services

Every service running is controlled by systemd.
Check the specific service or use the controller script
“lanserver” to start or stop all lanserver services.

Add Games to games.html

To add a new game, or just add a new plattform for a game, just run game_add.sh. You can find every parameter of the script when calling it with the -h parameter.
Every parameter except -f is optional and will be asked interactively. The file or directory must already exist somewhere on this server. So you need to transfer the game/application file or directory manually via scp or something else.

The snippet files you generated with this script are located in /var/www/template by default. It’s a bit ugly but perhaps this part will be rewritten with a database-like backend.
If needed, you can modify the *.html snippets with the editor of your choice.
If you have changed something manually in in a html snippet in /var/www/template just run games_reindex.sh to create a new games.html in the webservers directory.

Forwarding Internet from another device

If your device has two interfaces, you can use a bash script called nat_control.sh to enable NAT forwarding/masquerading to the LAN network.
It only has two options (enable/disable) and when calling it with enable you must provide the device which has internet access. It depends on your configuration of interfaces.

Example:

root# nat_control.sh enable eth1

Contributing

If you want to add a component to the puppet module, just create a new .pp to the lanserver/manifests/ directory and write some puppet code. If you want to add support for more distributions, modify the install_server.sh file and add a function which checks requirements as repositories for packages, etc. Don’t forget to check the module code for distribution-specific paths and add a conditional statement for it.

ToDos

• interactive bash script to create a hiera template which overwrites parameters from params.pp
• add mumble server
• add etherpad support
• add kiwiirc to autostart via systemd
• rewrite add_game.sh to use a markup language like .xml or use a little database backend like sqlite
• add a list/searching feature to add_game.sh. Output html snipet when found.
• let the “lanserver” script enable NAT and disable it again, when it’s running
• Make code more portable to support more distributions like Debian, Ubuntu and openSUSE
• Support other solutions for the admin to upload a game to the server except ssh/scp. Something like uploading a file/directory via non-anonymous ftp user.
• search for a better solution to translate titles of the website in webroot.pp. Consider a own class containting the language variables or something.
• Add information about bridging from a vm
• add spec tests to test all kinds of stuff