14 Jun
2024
14 Jun
'24
8:49 a.m.
On 14/6/24 6:17 am, Dan Cross via 44net wrote:
Correct. As I understand it, the intent is for a bunch
of wireguard
VPNs to replace the existing IPENCAP tunnel mesh. So instead of having
bidirectional tunnels between sites carrying 44net traffic, sites
would instead establish VPN connections to a (hopefully?) nearby POP
that then route traffic normally across the broader Internet. So for
example, if one is in the northeastern US one might VPN into a NE-US
POP and route through it. But the VPN infrastructure would not be used
over the air (again, as I understand it).
That was my understanding as well, to make it easier for the average end
user to connect to the IPIP (or its replacement) infrastructure. I did
similar for myself, putting my IPIP endpoint in the cloud and then using
a ZeroTier bridge to make my subnet accessible here, allowing ZeroTier
to do the work of getting through local NAT. The VPS where the IPIP
terminates is relatively close to me, so performance is good.
When ARDC replace the IPIP mesh, I'd like to put my VPS on the backbone,
so I can use my existing link without the overhead of an additional VPN
tunnel, since I already have equivalent functionality in place.
In some respects this will be an improvement over the existing tunnel
mesh: sites won't have to maintain all the routes themselves, and
programs like ampr-ripd or my own 44ripd can slowly fade into
obscurity. On the other hand, it will, on average, make connecting
between sites marginally slower: the existing point-to-point tunnels
are, in some way, optimal between sites as presumably the routing of
encapsulated datagrams flows directly between endpoints (or as
directly as anything routed over the Internet ever is, anyway).
The way the routing works is one thing I like about the IPIP mesh that
VPNs by themselves can't easily reproduce, but I believe there's more
modern methods out there to replace the IPIP functionality with, with
the last hop to the end user being done using Wireguard, unless they
choose to participate in the backbone.
--
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com