New subject: Network 44.190.5.x work!

9 May 2018


      Description:
The network 44.190.0.0/16 is available to host amateur radio internet
services using direct BGP. Allocations will be made usually in /24
chunks. The focus of this network is to transfer data as direct as
possible (no radio, no tunnels) to keep reliability high. AMPRNet
systems with no dynamic routing protocol support are able to route
44.190.0.0/16 via their ISP.
Background:
AMPRNet allocations are not partitioned by connectivity type. Each
individual network can either be of type "radio", "tunnel" or "direct".
AMPRNet systems may be "dual homed" and have a line based and a radio
connection, thus there needs to be a decision whether a packet should be
forwarded by line or by radio.
This _could_ be achieved by AMPRNet systems *with* dynamic routing
protocols by learning the routes and treating each route by its type (or
any other available "flag"). However this will _never_ be the case for
AMPRNet systems *without* support for dynamic routing protocols.
Endusers running a *radio* connection to AMPRNet infrastructure such as
HAMNET User Acess Points, IPIP-Mesh Gateways or even direct-BGP Gateways
might ask how to integrate the radio connection into their home-LAN to
have permanent access using any device on their LAN. Unfortunately
standard home routers do not provide dynamic routing protocols, but
there is often the functionality to add additional static routes like
"44.0.0.0/8 via radio" and "44.190.0.0/16 via ISP". Sometimes customers
are *forced* to use the router provided by the ISP to access the
Internet (such a requirement is prohibited by law in Germany). Those
might have no functionality to set static routes at all and you might
end up attaching another router to the router to gain more functionality...
As of today the standard setup for "dual homed" AMPRNet systems
*without* support for dynamic routing protocols is to add 44.0.0.0
netmask 255.0.0.0 via <radio device within the home-LAN>. Outbound
connections to 44.x.x.x will be made by their radio with the source-44
address and outbound connections to the Internet will be made with the
source address obtained from the ISP.
This worked without any issues as long as there were no direct BGP
allocations within the network44. Nowadays we have several amateur radio
internet services provided on the Network44 by direct BGP and the
accessibility for the above mentioned AMPRNet systems highly depends on
a proper radio connection and the backbone infrastructure to transfer
the packet to its destination.
The idea of 44.190.0.0/16 is to give willing stakeholders the
opportunity to improve the situation. Amateur radio internet services
can be hosted in that range while AMPRNet systems can make use of the
additional route 44.190.0.0/16 via their ISP.
The following issue has much more impact:
Once direct BGP allocations started within the Network44 we encountered
situations of full incompatibility. It is the case for amateur radio
internet services (e.g. Echolink) working with a directory to map
callsigns to IP addresses. Echolink does learn the IP address of an
Echolink station (respectively of the used Echolink Proxy or Relay) from
the inbound connection to the directory service.
This leads to the problem, that AMPRNet systems forwarding 44.0.0.0/8 to
the radio device on the roof will not have a slow or weak connection to
a Echolink station using direct BGP but even *no* connection at all.
Since they are registered on the Echolink network with their IP address
obtained from the ISP but appearing with their Network44 address used
over radio at the Echolink station using direct BGP, the connection is
dropped due to a mismatch between "IP address <-> callsign".
This will not happen if Echolink Relay/Proxy Servers or Echolink
Stations will make use of address space from 44.190.0.0/16 while AMPRNet
systems route 44.190.0.0/16 via their ISP. There will be no IP mismatch
anymore.
I made a diagram explaining the situation:
http://db0fhn.efi.fh-nuernberg.de/~dg8ngn/echolink-amprnet.pdf
73,
Jann
-- 
Jann Traschewski, Faber-Castell-Str. 9, D-90522 Oberasbach, Germany
Tel.: +49-911-99946898, Mobile: +49-170-1045937, E-Mail: jann@gmx.de
Ham: DG8NGN / DB0VOX / DB0FOX / DB0ZM / DB0DBA / DB0HZS

Network 44.190.0.0/16 - Further information