Everything You Need to Know About Your Network

You need a network because you are going to run your event with more than one computer or device.  Technically, you could run a whole event from a single computer / device, but then you are making life difficult.  Simply adding in a smartphone, tablet or another laptop means those devices will need to talk to each, thusly you’ll need a network.

Absolutely.  You can easily have multiple laptops or desktops and simply run ethernet cables to each one from a switch or router.   However, this would mean that drivers can’t access results from their smartphone or tablet and you’ll want to setup a computer where they can come to the trailer and check results themselves.

Using a router in this scenario may be more beneficial.  Depending upon your technical comfort levels, without it, you’ll need to manually configure each computer’s IP address.  With a router, you can usually just plug in the computers and they’ll know how to talk to each other.  

In either case, you’ll need to know the IP address or computer name of the computer you installed AXti.me RM on.

Use a wireless router with DD-WRT installed on it (not all brands and models support it, so check with us or go to dd-wrt.com.  DD-WRT is free.

DD-WRT gives you a bunch of optimizations and configuration options.  However, the biggest reason we push this, is a feature called DNSMasq.  Simply put, this let’s your drivers and system users type in an easy name or word into their browser, instead of an IP address.  Imagine each time you wanted to go to google.com, you instead had to type in “74.125.239.97”.  Not very easy to type let alone remember.  With DNSMasq, you can setup to allow the users to type in “results.com” or “rm.com” or whatever you want.  Much easier to type and remember.  

Why is that important?  Because we are about creating a great experience for you and your members.   Make things easy as much as possible for everyone.

Use at least one additional Wireless Access Point.

This  allows you to create 2 wireless networks and keep them separate.  You would separate the system network (Car Queuer, Cone Counter, Registration, etc. devices should be on this network) from the results network (all the drivers that want to check on results).  If the results network gets flooded or has issues, it won’t affect the system.