44net October 2020

44net@mailman.ampr.org

32 participants
22 discussions

Re: [44net] Education about networking (Was Re: Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call)
by Rob Janssen 04 Oct '20

04 Oct '20

>>>/AMPRNet / HamNet routing is quite complicated for a non-IT guy... / >>/The advantage of using BGP even in this trivial case is... / >I don't think the most important question is about selling BGP or any >particular technology (I'm well versed in internetwork engineering and >worked in that field professionally for many years; I'm in academia >now). >I'm writing this because education was a specific question in the >survey. >The reason that we have amateur radio is to enable experimentation with >using the radio spectrum in a way that is otherwise not permitted or >practical. With the Internet, there are certain things that are only >possible to experiment with if you have your own addresses and other >network numbers. AMPRNet is (perhaps that's too strong, and we could >say, "can be") a way of enabling a kind of experimentation on the >Internet similar to what we do with the radio spectrum. It is not clear to me what you are getting at here! These are different layers of the cake. Your radio experimentation will result in some way to transport bits from A to B, but not in a network. To build a network you need another layer, and a way to define what you need to send where to get your message to the destination. That is what BGP is handling. By using BGP instead of static routing, we can connect many radio links and other links together and make a network out of it without getting buried in manual routing chores. Please make sure you understand that the use of BGP I am mentioning here has nothing to do with the use of BGP on internet to route all the internet networks. It is the same protocol, but they are different use cases. Don't get confused when people say they have their AMPRnet subnet BGP routed to them on internet, and other people propose to use BGP internal to the AMPRnet network to route things the correct way, these are two different things. Rob

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Re: [44net] Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call
by Rob Janssen 04 Oct '20

04 Oct '20

> - AMPRNet / HamNet routing is quite complicated for a non-IT guy. BGP requires huge equipment and skills. IPIP requires hacking protocol redirect on Internet boxes. Those are not easy things for people operating a voice repeater or hotspot. They just build a Pi image, plug the machine, and it works. Why should they bother with complex addressing ? We have quite some repeaters that are connected via AMPRnet. We normally use MikroTik routers. I do not consider these "huge equipment" and they are not difficult to configure with BGP. I have some example configs for setting up an endpoint with L2TP/IPsec tunnel to our gateway router and using BGP to advertise their own subnet. This is much easier to get going than IPIP, for example there is no need to touch the existing internet router (open ports/protocols not required). This even makes it suitable for installation on buildings where the owner may make available some guest internet access but would not want you to tweak their network to pass IPIP. The advantage of using BGP even in this trivial case is that the network can now be extended when the opportunity arises without having another hurdle of complexity. A WiFi link to another station can be added, e.g. in some cases people have an internet connection at an amateur nearby the repeater, and then a WiFi link to the repeater itself. I would be all for rolling out such a system worldwide to replace the IPIP mesh. Routers (e.g. MikroTik CHR that can run as a VPS) in datacenters all over the world interconnected with a static tunnel mesh and offering VPN service for local amateurs to connect, and routing using BGP on private AS (this only routes AMPRnet, not full internet). In different places those routers could have the AMPRnet subnet(s) for that region announced on internet, like we do for 44.137.0.0/16 and others do for other country networks. And each of those can offer different VPN technologies so you are able to follow the trend of the day without having to do a migration in the entire network. Rob PE1CHL

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44net October 2020