Re: [44net] Time to restructure the network? - 44net

22 Jul 2019

...
  >Again, while there are over 500 gateways in the
current network with  tunnels
...
  between all of
them, there is no way they are all going to be in use. 
 It doesn't matter how many are in use.  If my ampr routing table has  50 or 500
or 5000 routes, who cares?

That is true for the Linux or JNOS situation.  However, people want to 
use the equipment they have available,
and on many other systems there has to be a separate virtual interface 
for every tunnel.  Scripts exist for
e.g. MikroTik and Cisco routers that manage this, but they have to 
create a large number of tunnel interfaces
and they hit limits of NVRAM size and others.
With 5000 endpoints there will certainly be issues!

...
  >Wiring them up for everyone really makes no sense,
and introduces a  scalability
...
  >problem that would become real when it were easier
to use the system  and we had like
...
  50000
participants instead of 500. 
 Do you have evidence for your statements? 
Yes.  See above.  I also once tried to use a left-over Cisco router and 
its NVRAM already was too small for this.

...

https://qrznow.com/us-amateur-radio-population-grows-slightly-in-2018/
 It looks like from 2014 to 2018, the US ham population only grew 4%.
 And I haven't monitored it closely.  But it seems to me that the size  of
amprnet has remained about the same (+/- 100 or so) for the last 10 
years.
...
  So who/where are these 49,500 other gateways? 
They probably are either not interested, or they are unable to overcome 
the problems setting up an IPIP gateway.
When we introduced the easier OpenVPN connection method here, there was 
a flurry of requests for certificates
and there now are 200 certificates active.  And that is only for one 
small country.

Rob