In 2018 we now have proper internet access in the tatty hut so the set-up on expo is exactly the same as the rest of the year. An expo laptop is also provided, but you should be able to use your own computer in exactly the same way (if you brought one) as you do at home.
We have our own WiFi ("potatohut" and usual cavey:beery password) which is connected (deviously) to the Gasthof campsite WiFi. So please don't stream video or do a lot of operating system updates using it as the Gasthof is probably paying per GB to their supplier.
Our own Wifi only works very close to the tatty hut. If you are camped over the road near the Gasthof you will need to use the Gasthof WiFi which takes you to a login page on a web browser and it will log you out if you stop using it or whenever it thinks you have been on too long. Get instructions from the Gasthof campsite reception.
The Expo laptop 'debian' in the tatty hut is a Dell Latitude E4200 laptop (loaned by Phil Sargent) which is connected to the router by a cable and not by WiFi (it's wifi doesn't work - although that can probably be fixed). It also has an external keyboard as a couple of vital keys are dead (e.g. down-arrow). It runs Linux and has installed all the software for talking to the server for:
Any laptop or phone can connect to the server via the "potatohut" WiFi and, with some configuration, can be set up to do all those things too. New expoers are advised to use the Expo laptop first to see how it all works.
Either the Expo laptop or your own laptop will use the version control system to synchronise cave data. It's easier to use the expo laptop as the software is already set up. But if you set up your own computer then you will get a more familiar environment. See the Expo Website Manual for info on how to do that.
Through the miracle of the distributed version control system, everyone can edit the data on multiple laptops at the same time and it should all get merged.
At the end of expo we don't need to bring the laptop back back to the UK (though we will, as we will want to do operating system updates during the year and maybe fix that keyboard) as all the caving data updates are continuously synchronised with the public server expo.survex.com during the expo.
The networking hardware is an Acer aspire netbook 192.168.200.1 (.200 on WiFi - this is the one to use for configuring using ssh) to manage the connection to the Gasthof WiFi (and a Mark Shinwell's script
/root/fakenet/runfakenetto keep us logged in to the Gasthof) and firewalling, plus a WNDR4000 router/AP to provide local connectivity and local WiFi. The antenna which we use to connect to the Staudnwirt WiFi is a ~32cm long blackstick mounted on a small shelf high above the sink/stove area and connected via a usb cable to the Acer netbook.
The potato hut WiFi is running DHCP and allocating IP addresses of the form 192.168.200.x where x is 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.
The Gasthof WiFi - which you can still use - is "staudnwirt" and has no WiFi password. It allocates IP addresses in the range 192.168.2.x etc. The antenna is now on the first-floor balcony within sight of the tatty hut window.
Prior to 2018 we used to run an unconnected local network with our own DNS domain name "potato.hut", our own server holding all the website and survey data, and published WiFi as SSID "tattyhut". Updates to the rest of the world were done by taking an up-to-date laptop which had been in the tatty hut to a real internet connection and pushing the changes to the distributed version control system on expo.survex.com to be merged.
In 2017 the hard-drive on our server died which triggered the general reconfiguration to connect the tattyhut to the internet continuously and not to have our own local server. This coincides with a much-improved WiFi serve at the Gasthof in recent years.