karn@FALINE.BELLCORE.COM (Phil R. Karn) (01/19/88)
I posted this note on the USENET amateur packet radio group last weekend, and a few people suggested that this group might appreciate it also. Phil From: karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn) Newsgroups: rec.ham-radio.packet Subject: Amateur TCP/IP path contest Message-ID: <1712@faline.bellcore.com> Date: 15 Jan 88 22:29:27 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research Now that TCP/IP is really starting to take off in the amateur world, I think it would be fun to start a running contest. The goal is to see who can come up with the most complex, ad-hoc Internet path involving one or more amateur packet radio links. This is inspired by Mike O'Dell's famous "worst wire" contest. The only requirement is that the path must actually work! At a minimum, you must successfully complete a three-way TCP handshake and then successfully close the connection. To start things off, I'd like to describe an experiment we did last weekend. As many of you know, Telenet has this nifty service called PC Pursuit. From any Telenet access number, you may connect to a remote dialout modem in in something like 6 metropolitan areas. As long as you use it only during evenings and weekends, it costs $25/month -- flat rate! Several amateur TCP/IP groups have begun using PC Pursuit to link their otherwise isolated "islands", with excellent results. Last weekend Al, WB0MPQ (another resident of Warren, NJ) dialed up a PC Pursuit link to Brian, WB6RQN, in the Maryland suburbs of DC. While the link was up, I had Bob, WA3PXX, telnet briefly to a Bellcore machine named "sabre" in Navesink, NJ. The path was as follows: Node, location Link/Subnetwork ---- ---- ---------- wa3pxx.ampr (PC/XT) 222.06 Mhz AX.25 link duplex RF repeater Gaithersburg, MD(?) 223.66 Mhz AX.25 link wb6rqn.ampr (PC/AT) Germantown, MD SLIP on 1200 baud dialup phone line (C&P Tel) Telenet dialer port Washington, DC GTE Telenet X.25 network Telenet TIP port Rahway, NJ SLIP on 1200 baud dialup phone line (NJ Bell) wb0mpq.ampr (PC/XT) Warren, NJ 147.525/430.05 Mhz full duplex AX.25 link switch.ka9q.ampr (PX/XT) Warren, NJ KA9Q shack Ethernet sun.ka9q.ampr (Sun 3/75) SLIP on 9600 bps dialup phone line (NJ Bell) Micom terminal switch Piscataway, NJ T-1 leased line (portion) (NJ Bell) Micom terminal switch Morristown, NJ hardwired RS-232 line doomsday.bellcore.com (Sun 2/170) Lab Ethernet Ethernet repeater Machine room central Ethernet DEC Lan Bridge Building backbone Ethernet Ethernet repeater Building "core" Ethernet Vitalink Translan T-1 leased line (portion) (NJ Bell) Vitalink Translan Piscataway, NJ T-1 leased line (portion) (NJ Bell) Vitalink Translan Navesink, NJ building backbone Ethernet DEC Lan Bridge Building wing Ethernet DEC Lan Bridge Lab Ethernet sabre.bellcore.com (Vax 11/750?) ...and back. This was a direct end-to-end connection; the TCPs on wa3pxx.ampr and sabre.bellcore.com spoke directly to each other. Excluding the endpoints themselves, the path their IP datagrams took included: 8 Ethernets 5 IP gateways (2 Suns, 3 PC's running KA9Q net.exe) 4 radio frequencies on 3 amateur bands 3 dialup phone links (2 @ 1200 baud, 1 @ 9600 baud) 3 T-1 digital leased lines with multiplexors 3 Vitalink Translan IIIs 3 DEC Translan 100s 2 Micom terminal switches 2 Ethernet repeaters 1 full duplex RF repeater 1 public X.25 network (Telenet) 1 partridge in a pear tree :-) So...can anybody top this? Who will be the first to include an amateur satellite link in a TCP/IP path once AMSAT Phase 3-C is launched later this year? 73, Phil