MozEventBox

What is it?

A li'l box creating an Intranet (not connected to the Internet) accessible through WiFi to anyone near it, for example at a booth, a conference or a workshop.

Page on MozFr Wiki : http://wiki.mozfr.org/MozEventBox

Where does it come from?

The idea came to me after the Fosdem. One of the English Reps (FuzzyFox) had a laptop with a contact form, but it was only available when he was at the booth. The rest of the time, we had to use pen and paper, when we remembered to do so.

Later, I realized that it was not the only thing that was missing for the events.

During the (Parisian) Ubuntu Party, people at the booth didn't have the same areas of competence. Thus their answers to the questions asked were different, or these people were not there at the same time. Later, reading the report, I realized that some of the questions asked had not been noted.

During other events, I heard very good and exhaustive answers given spontaneously, and regretted that the answers were not kept, improved and completed time after time.

Discussing this with other Mozillians, it rapidly appeared that their were other use for it, such as putting demos on it for example.

The idea of a wireless server disconnected from the Internet was inspired from the PirateBox.

Interests

• Possibility to do without the Internet
• Possibility to do without current, depending on the hardware used (battery and consumption)

Sometimes, WiFi connexion available at an event or a conference is overloaded. There are also stability problems withe the connexion, sometimes the electric current in some countries or regions.

Technical realization

Hardware

• router + USB hard drive/stick
• or a netbook with a Master mode enabled WiFi card
• or a plug-computer + WiFi stick (in Master mode)

Software

• System : OpenWRT or DD-WRT (router) or Debian (laptop or plug)
• SSH Server
• DHCP Server
• DNS Server just to redirect everything to the server itself (with a short ttl to not break things).
• Server Web léger: Nginx
• Database : MySQL, SQLite?
• Interpreter : PHP-fpm, Python, node, …?

Possibles content

Introduction

• Introduction (slideshow ? mini site ?) about Mozilla
• …and the community's activities

A contact form

• Let people leave their contact information and what they are interested in (why they want to be contacted)
• Let people leave a Resume

Demos

• Host demos
• Host Hackasaurus-like activities ?

Guest book

• Enable people to leave notes, comments and suggestions.

Keeping track of asked questions

• Note questions asked, answers given at the time.
• Go back on them afterward and add elements to the answers
• Use this base to better answer questions next time

The idea is not to make something overkill, a simple wiki easy to set up would do.