Hi everybody,

I am pretty ignorant on using Tunneling and I have some questions.

Firstly, does using a Tunnel Client require port forwarding. There is somebody that would like to try out the capabilities of BBHN without having to buy the expensive equipment needed to make the long distance link that will be needed for me to connect with them. The problem is, they are using a wireless internet provider that has a has a big firewall sett up for the network, and they do not allow port forwarding.

Second, if I have a Tunnel Server, will people be able to connect to it on RF and talk to people connected using the tunnel?

Third, is it correct that a Tunnel Server is like the center of a star network and all the Tunnel Clients connect to it and talk to each other and anybody who might be connected to the Tunnel Server node over RF?

Fourth, can people connect with RF to a Tunnel Client and use it to access the Tunnel Server?

Lastly, any good articles on here that could answer these questions and just provide a good description of how Tunneling exactly works?

Thanks!

KK4TGV 

Hi,

Here is what I know from my experimenting:

1. No.  A tunnel client just needs to be connected to an internet connection. The tunnel is an outbound connection so a router should allow outbound links to be created without any extra config.

2. Yes.  If you set a tunnel server up on an RF node it has connections to multiple nodes and can route traffic across the tunnel as well as the RF

3. I guess that's on way of looking at it.  A tunnel server is part of a mesh so the tunnel is just a link to another node. Maybe think of it as having multiple directional antenna on a node that connect to other nodes that cant see each other.

4. Yes. any clients that are on an RF mesh will also appear on another mesh if they are linked via tunnel.  A tunnel just extends a mesh in the same way 2 mesh networks that are just out of range having an RF node placed between them.  The mesh just gets bigger.

5. This website has a lot of info. Just search for tunnel.

Basically, a tunnel just extends an existing mesh with another mesh.  Here is a specific example:

I have 4 nodes in a mesh in my little corner of New Zealand.  Each of my nodes list the other nodes as current neighbors and the services that they advertise.  Standard RF mesh setup where all nodes are in range of each other.

I setup a node that is in gateway mode as a tunnel client to N5MBM in Texas.  When the tunnel was created the remote nodes list suddenly had a lot of nodes in it.  The remote nodes list included:

• All the nodes that were connected via the RF mesh in the area around N5MBM
• All the tunnel clients connected to N5MBM
• All the nodes that the tunnel clients connected to N5MBM could see either over RF or via tunnels of their own

Once the tunnel was up, I could connect to all the nodes in the list and see the various services they were publishing

Does that make sense?

Jon