With the patient help of a few people I have my little mesh up and tunneling like it should.  It has been up for a while and surprisingly stable.  I haven't noticed any restarts or problems - so far...

Now I am ready to see who else I can connect with!  I have both a client node and a server node for people to connect to me with and I need some patient folks to help me see just how good it is!

Or how bad...  I am testing, looking for other people testing, hoping to find a few folks to test with...  I want to find out where the problems lie.  I want to be able to give some USEFUL feedback to the guys hard at work developing this stuff!

I can't help but laugh though, this is sort of like the old BBS days, with Fido-Net - I had one of the first HD based BBS's in Houston.  Now I am doing it again over the mesh...  Back then we had a tiger by the tail if we had a 9600 baud modem.  Things are a little different now...

I live in the boondocks, so having RF neighbors right now is next to impossible but we are working on it!  I have some more guys in the county getting interested.  But we want to see MORE!

Personally, I would like to see LOTS of little link lines on the node map!  All over Texas and beyond!

Drop me a note or post up here if you are looking for people to test your tunneling out with!

Bill - N5MBM

n5mbm @ n5mbm dot net

Bill, that's wonderful! I (unfortunately) remember those days of Fido-net although even that was after Radio Shack was no longer a parts supply store when we all learned by building things.

This mesh project is exciting because it's still in its infancy with lots of room for grass roots development. My mesh network is confined to a valley in the boondocks of NH but I gave a presentation on it to the Central NH Amateur Radio club and there was enough interest that at least one of the members is actively planning to utilize it with his proposed 10 meter repeater.

I've been plotting out the terrain to find somewhere to place a remote node to reach out to the larger expanses of population down in the river valleys. It's the most excitement this old man has had since he was a teenager!

Bill

sign me up

k3mmb at arrl.net

I completely get the novelty of building big networks with the tunneling technique.  Let's remember though that these Internet-based tunnels will likely not survive disasters and you should not use them in an emcomm plan.  Although it's certainly a "trick" to carry in your bag that might be useful in a disaster if circumstances support it... through a satellite links, etc.

Tunnels are most useful when building out your network to connect "mesh islands" together before you're able to connect them via RF.  In doing so, the interconnected mesh can more easily spark the interest of other hams, justify the build-out of network services like email--VoIP--file services, and enable you to extend the mesh and run exercises sooner, etc.  As soon as you can connect via RF I recommend you take the tunnels down.

So, I encourage you to have fun with it, understand how to set them up, and when the excitement wanes... starting using it as a strategic tool to complete the mesh implementation in your area.

Andre, K6AH

I agree that the internet is likely to be absent, but in our case, we are building a 5GHz AIRMAX backbone.

It now covers portions of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia. So  all this practice gives us lots more understanding of how to get out of the incident zone. Our goal is to be able to reach a node with internet service out to 100 miles. But within our AO we want to provide contingency communications as needed. WE need to move traffic within the many ZONES we may be dealing with during any given situation.

To be honest our real issue is getting local HAMS interested. 

73 de mike

@K6AH - good points...  However, in my case, when Hurricane Ike hit a few years back, we had no lights, no phones, no cell phones and flood water everywhere around us - but our point to point microwave ISP out here stayed up and running thanks to fiber links and back up generators.

We were literally sitting in the dark, surfing the web on laptops with our own WiFi running off the same generators keeping our freezers alive...  We thought it rather ironic to be surfing by lantern light...

I know it isn't all that and a bag of chips when the stuff hits the fan...  But if we don't get some interest in toying with it and interconnecting, we will have a hard time getting people to be interested in it at all.  As K3MMB said, the problem is getting enough other people interested to even have anything to connect to via RF.  If nobody participates, nobody gets to have any fun with it...

If you build a temple, they will come...  If you prop up a tent in the desert, you probably wont have many visitors... :)  I don't mind being one of those that lays down the roads that people may eventually follow.  But I have to have a few destinations... :)

Bill - N5MBM

Not sure what you are running your backbone under but just in case they are running part 97 keep in mind that tunnels use methods to obfuscate the transmission content (encryption) to protect it as it traverses the global internet and may not be an acceptable protocol for use over Amature Radio links.

We figured out a little tip/trick/hint...  We had a few problems with getting people to sync up after entering their data in my server or my client...

But REBOOTING after saving their entries makes things come alive when it comes back up!  So if you are adding nodes and they don't show up as active - THAT'S WHY!  REBOOT!

Just trying to save anyone else the head scratchin' headache me and several other people have been trying to figure out this morning, this afternoon and this evening...

I have 5 remote people connected now and still rock solid - so far! :)  I am told there is a limit of TEN remote tunnel nodes per server or client node.  So I can talk to 20 before I have to add another tunnel router...

Bill - N5MBM

Many thanks to Bill for the tunnel connection, and to the developers who made tunneling possible!  I'm working on an RF connection that will bring me into the local mesh network here in Las Vegas, but until then, I'm on one of those "RF islands".

Awesome stuff!

Rick

KG7LKI

Double tap - duplicate.

Hi Bill (N5MBM),

I have one WRT54G flashed (N5EN-1) flashed, but it looks like I am an island node in SW Houston.  How does the tunneling work to get connected to you?  I may have another WRT54G V2 soon and have an antenna and a 2.4GHZ bullet on the way, but I'll still probably be an island in SW Houston. I just need some tutoring on how to set up a node to tunnel through the internet.  It would be lovely to monitor the farm house in Brenham from Houston and visa versa.

Neal N5EN

@Neal - N5EN

We will get you all setup!  Amazon to the rescue once again!

I got the Ubiquiti M2 rocket module, the 13db dual polarity omni antenna, a Ubiquiti POE "Tough Switch" and a Foscam HD waterproof IP camera all setup and running on a UPS out in the barn for you - doing the "burn-in" shuffle!

For resource links it has HamChat installed on it, a Node Info List and the camera people can click on and see when they visit.

Bill W5TZ and I have discussed a tower stand off bracket to make the install go smoothly...

Take a peek at the nodelist to see the BrenhamNW node.

http://n5mbm.endoftheinternet.org:8084/cgi-bin/mesh

Keep in touch with me and we will see if we can get this hung off of your tower next weekend!

Bill - N5MBM

www.n5mbm.net

BTW - just 'cuz I don't have many folks to brag to and feel important... :)

I'm doin' a happy dance over here!  We got Remi F6CNB setup and online via tunneling to my nodes from PARIS FRANCE!  I also got Wayne KH6TZ in Honolulu Hawaii on the world wide mesh as well!  In addition to Maryland, California, LasVegas and numerous points in Texas...

Anyone down in Australia wanna give it a try?!?  (big cheesy grin...)

Anyone else want to join the fun?!?  I have slots open on my tunnel client and tunnel server ready to set you up when you are ready to see the bigger picture...  Ya know, just to see how it works when we get it all loaded down...  Help me help the team debug this puppy!

Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

Bill - N5MBM

www.n5mbm.net

http://n5mbm.endoftheinternet.org:8084/cgi-bin/mesh

Would New Zealand be far enough away :-)

Just about to flash a wrt with 3.0.1 and need to finish configuring my internet connection with a separate network for the mesh node so its firewalled from my internal LAN but should be capable of setting up a tunnel sometime soon.

Jon

Having said that, I have a WRT54GL so may not have enough space for the vtun software.

My current mesh internet gateway is a raspberry pi running hsmm-pi so if you are up for me having a go, I can install vtun on that and see if we can connect?

Jon

Just saw this tangent after I replied to Bill's tangent about what to do next :)

If there is a need to have more access to tunneling, I have an old server (dell poweredge r200) sitting here soon nothing. Has centos on it currently but would put another distro on it if wanted. Would need the help and advice to get it setup and running.

As for the legal issues of tuneling, the old 2m jnos stations used to do encapsulation and tunneling all the time when there was interest and they had access toe internet. Check out the bottom of the www.mi-drg.org page for telnet links to some of Michigan's know systems. Mileage will vary as there has been off and on interest over the years. So sign me up to do something with the knowledge that I WILL be asking for help in doing this :)

James W8ISS

@W8ISS - So far as I know, at this point in time, the WRT54GS's v1-4 are the only ones that will do the tunneling, so far... Memory limitations and hardware limitations are to blame, from what I understand... But I heard something about somebody doing it with Ubiquiti Bullets - I cannot confirm this though... I haven’t' tried it.

The tunneling goes through the internet – no restrictions on encryption there! Once it hits the air though, no encryption allowed... Those people who argue this point are armchair lawyers, at best. Some folks have little else to commit their time to, other than arguing a point that is moot. :)

I have dedicated routers setup for tunneling – One server and one client. Each tunnelling router allows 10 people to connect to them, each. (So I can handle 20 people!)  If I need more than 10, I have to add another router – that's just the way things are, right now. But let me tell ya – if you have a normal DSL line, 20 tunnels will sure knock one hell of a dent in your available bandwidth for normal surfing! I have a 35mb business connection that has a little bandwidth to spare...

With all that being said... I am STILL looking for more people to bog down my internet connection with! :)

Bill – N5MBM