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From: pa2aga
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Subject: TCP-Group Digest 96/172A
X-BBS-Msg-Type: B
TCP-Group Digest Mon, 26 Aug 96 Volume 96 : Issue 172
Today's Topics:
56kbps router
advanced networking (11 msgs)
DJGPP NOS now available
PPP/SLIP in connected AX25?
PPP/SLIP over AX.25
Send Replies or notes for publication to: <TCP-Group@UCSD.Edu>.
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Problems you can't solve otherwise to brian@ucsd.edu.
Archives of past issues of the TCP-Group Digest are available
(by FTP only) from ftp.UCSD.Edu in directory "mailarchives".
We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text
herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official
policies or positions of any party. Your mileage may vary. So there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 09:30:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: jmorriso@bogomips.com (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: 56kbps router
We have been using Linux as a 56kbps router for a few years now.
The main reason is that it's better than running NOS - we've even
won over a few BSD bigots becase they prefer it to NOS and they
don't have time to write an AX.25 stack and drivers :-)
Linux supports the Ottawa PI and the Packetwin boards - both DMA
based synchronous serial cards needed for 56kbps. (linux has a lot
of commercial support for synchronous boards up to T1, but noone
has hacked them to work with AX.25).
Linux has a real AX.25 and NetROM stack in the kernel, plus KISS
TNC support, so it can be used with legacy 1200bps and 9600 bps
systems. (It can even run those horrid Baycom serial port modems and
still multitask decently!) Other hams are jumping on the bandwagon
and porting popular BBSs like FBB to Linux (personally, I have no
interest in BBSs)
It of course has all the usual bells and whistles of other POSIX
certified UNIX operating systems, development tools, driver support
and a good TCP/IP stack.
It's a cheap and effective 56kbps packet radio router.
If one wanted to make a small, standalone router for packet radio
they could build it like this:
- passive backplane 486 with integrated video, ethernet etc.
- flash EPROM solid state floppy drive
- PI card or PackeTwin
- optional hardware watchdog timer board (preferably built into the passive
backplane
CPU)
- the cards can be mounted horizontally on a small backplane and it would be
quite small.
Linux would boot from floppy into a RAMdisk and run the needed
configuration. Linux is small enough to fit a working router onto
one floppy. With a compressed floppy (people have already written
this code so it's easy) you can fit more junk on the disk - maybe
load CMU snmpd, telnetd and shell, or even run a web server to
configure the router the way Cisco does now!)
A box like this could be made small, portable and could be run off
12VDC. It would be more expensive than piecing it together from
junk, but it could be a simpler off the shelf box for the appliance
operators. It's just a matter of sourcing parts for it and making
it pretty; no time would be needed to rewrite or port code,
test etc. because it's already done.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
BogoMIPS Research Labs -- bogosity research & simulation -- VE7JPM --
jmorriso@bogomips.com ve7jpm@ve7jpm.ampr.org jmorriso@ve7ubc.ampr.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 03:34:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: Steve Sampson <ssampson@disco.oklahoma.net>
Subject: advanced networking
> We are running a 56K network up here. 56K goes into the shack!
Well hell Dennis, we can only envy you. The big thing in OKC is the .5 Watt
9600 repeater :-)
> We designed our own RF gear for 440 MHz. Sold kits to everyone in sight.
> Had a tune-up party (several times too).
I'm interested. How do you distribute the particulars? How much do you
charge? You see, part of this whole exercise is to just go and define what
it is people need. If you have the RF side complete, then the best form of
thanks is duplication (to coin a phrase)... I do like the new 56 k design,
but I think I read they were only sold assembled??
Do you have a web page of the info? Do you have something like a mailer
if someone would write you?
I'd like to fully design a solution based on the experiance your group has
had. Something like a Web page that any Ham could go to. It would have the
code, the kits, the advice. Once they click on all the parts, get them built
and aligned, they have a tried and tested solution.
Has your group done this already?
Thanks for sharing,
Steve
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 11:25:00 -0000
From: mikebw@bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net (Mike Bilow)
Subject: advanced networking
Brian Kantor wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:
BK> Yeah, my PS-186 is sitting in a box in the garage, with the
BK> software for it only half-done. Like a lot of other projects,
BK> its time has passed.
And what has been learned from that experience?
BK> I'd like to see something like what Steve suggests: a box that
BK> bridges and/or routes IP from a household Ethernet over ham
BK> radio to other similar boxes.
Sure, but the economics of manufacturing dictate that the cheapest such device
would be a standard PC! A 386SX running Linux would do exactly this. We
could
design a carefully optimized board with a proprietary operating system and
probably get it produced within a year or two, a project on a level of
difficulty comparable to the original TAPR TNC. However, 486 motherboards are
selling for $50 and RAM is selling for $5 per megabyte -- right now.
BK> I think one of those dedicated entire-PC-on-a-card widgets with
BK> an Ethernet adaptor and something that'd do 56kb, attached to a
BK> GRAPES modem would be so advanced that most hams would be
BK> afraid of it. But we could build a network with it. What's
BK> needed for THIS is a simple buy-this-and-connect-that
BK> REPLICABLE station -- one that any ham who wanted to
BK> participate could order up the pieces without the fear of money
BK> flushed down a rat-hole, and get it on the air.
I think it is foolish to build things which we know would be uneconomical, and
this includes the whole family of "entire-PC-on-a-card widgets." I would also
consider Ethernet cards to be obviously uneconomical to replicate. If we take
an off-the-shelf PC motherboard and add a common NE2000-style Ethernet card,
we
already have much of the hardware issues solved. At that point, I think it
becomes reasonable to build a special card which plugs into the motherboard
and
which would provide the interface to some sort of RF modem.
To be continued in digest: tcp_96_172B
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