March 2018 - PSDR - mailman.hamwan.org

HamWan 900 MHz
by Stan 23 May '19

23 May '19

if this is up and running, I'd sure like to buy a 900 Mhz modem and get the HamWan a bit farther into Mason County. Any suggestions? -- Stan KF7LTT Spams/Scams Forwarded To WA State Attorney For Prosecution.

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CapitolPark <-> QueenAnne link
by Bart Kus 19 Apr '19

19 Apr '19

After hours of debugging, I got this 20MHz single-polarity link moving up to 55Mbit. A high resolution spectrum analysis on both sides did indeed show a better frequency to use for the link. Spectrum analysis captures here: https://imgur.com/a/4H7GB There was also an IP conflict between two modems @ Capitol Park. The conflicting IP has been removed from CapitolPark-S3. The QueenAnne modem used for the link is not one used anywhere else on the network. It's a very low-end modem, and as a result it was having CPU/RAM starvation issues when running our regular diagnostic tools, which lead to out-of-memory conditions and kernel crashes. A different test methodology had to be used to verify the link speed (testing through the modem, instead of to the modem). The modem that links QueenAnne with the Westin building (on the QueenAnne side) had a mis-configured OSPF router-id. This was fixed. I'm still seeing weird routing decisions being made by OSPF. These are triggered by our point-to-point route entries (44.24.242.0/24 space). More research needs to be done here, and perhaps a re-write of how we define point-to-point interface addresses. Any OSPF experts in the house? I also discovered R1.QueenAnne was still vulnerable to hacking due to a mis-configuration of its control software. It missed the updates that were sent out to the whole network. This has been fixed now. R1.QueenAnne also didn't have the diagnostic bandwidth-server setup correctly. This was fixed. With the CapitolPark-QueenAnne link performing well now: [eo@CapitolPark-QueenAnne] /system resource> /tool bandwidth-test 44.24.241.81 direction=both status: running duration: 57s tx-current: 28.0Mbps tx-10-second-average: 28.4Mbps tx-total-average: 27.5Mbps rx-current: 27.6Mbps rx-10-second-average: 28.0Mbps rx-total-average: 27.0Mbps lost-packets: 288 random-data: no direction: both tx-size: 1500 rx-size: 1500 its OSPF config has been reset to a normal preference level, so that packets no longer try to avoid that link as they are routed through the network. This link can be sped up by upgrading to a dual-polarity modem @ CapitolPark. While testing if the OSPF hop cost was being calculated correctly in the Beacon-Haystack-QueenAnne RF link (they both connect to the same dish @ Haystack), I discovered a mis-config on the Haystack.Beacon modem (bad LAN IP binding) which was preventing it from bringing up OSPF on its LAN interface. This was fixed and that modem should act like an actual router now, moving traffic. During the same Beacon testing, I was reminded that our Baldi-Beacon RF link sucks <https://monitoring.hamwan.net/cacti/graph.php?action=view&local_graph_id=91…>. It was optimized for speed to Tukwila, which is now gone, so a trip needs to be scheduled to Baldi to rotate the dish a few degrees north and get that link going strong. I normally wouldn't send this kind of verbose email to psdr@, but I hope it's illuminating as to the type and extent of work required to keep this network running well. --Bart

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Board Director Elections
by Nigel Vander Houwen 13 May '18

13 May '18

Hello Everyone, It’s been a year since our current board members were elected, so it’s time for new elections. As a quick recap for folks that haven’t been around, or need a reminder: Board member positions last for one year. Any supporting member is eligible to vote for board members. Any supporting member is eligible to run for a position on the board. There is no limit on the number of board members, so if you want to run and participate, you’re not taking a spot away from anyone else. There is a minimum number of 3 board members. Supporting members are those who have contributed at the Basic level ($20/mo) (or more) for the last 6 months. Voting is open for 7 days. Each board member is a separate “election”, IE you don’t have to choose one person to vote for, you choose Yay or Nay for all individuals. Please respond to the list with your votes, the list serves as our public record. Here’s our current list of supporting members (the folks who are eligible to vote on directors, or run for director themselves): Terence Chan Clifton Gurlen Nigel Vander Houwen Jim Hudspeth Cory Johnson Kenneth Koster Bart Kus Randy Neals Kenny Richards Robert Salsgiver Mark Sheppard Mike Shirley Lynn Speed Ryan Turner David Yost I’d also like to thank the following folks for their contributions, but have not yet met the minimum requirements to be an official “Supporting Member” according to our constitution: Bob Edmiston Carl Leon I’d like to thank all of the above folks for supporting HamWAN and our ability to purchase gear to expand the network and provide services to users. We’ve been very fortunate in our ability to keep overhead low, so we can put as much as possible into things that directly improve the network. We’ve seen a lot of great progress over the past year, not to mention a number of new users on the network, including a lot of interest from the local ACS folks. Here’s a small sampling of some of the things accomplished over the past year. The new cell site at Beacon was brought online, and has enabled a number of users to connect. Our “Open Peering Policy” project saw new users, as well as a feature improvement to allow dynamic IPs The new site at Baw Faw was brought online. The Haystack site saw significant restructuring of the power system to avoid the outages we had last winter. It’s been working great this winter! Baldi has been improved with a large battery bank to keep it running during outages. Our sister networks all over have seen great progress, Spokane, Tampa Bay, Interior BC and more. Capitol Park saw the addition of a bit of battery backup capacity, and some better optimized antenna aim on one of the backhaul links. We’ve also seen some damage over the winter, that we’re working to repair. Gold has been intermittent due to what we suspect is a faulty PDU. We have a new PDU, and some batteries to give the site some backup power ready. I expect the trip up will be happening soon. Sector 3 on Haystack which covers a lot of the populated areas died this winter. We’ve got a replacement on standby for when the snow clears enough for us to get up there to replace it. Our sponsorship with a local datacenter provider at Tukwila ended this year. It was a nice setup where we could announce to the internet at large, and had RF links that provided extra redundancy to Baldi and East Tiger. We thank them for their donated services over the last three years, and we’ll be working to find replacements soon to add back that redundancy. All of these things and more have been the results of massive efforts of a whole lot of people this year. Thanks to every one of you for making this happen. Whether your contribution was in time onsite tightening bolts, or with a few dollars that helps us buy new modems and dishes, it’s all been valued. Thank you. So, to the final point. It’s time to vote again on the board directors. For the past year Bart Kus, Cory Johnson, Ryan Turner, and myself have acted as the board for HamWAN. I have appreciated their work over the past year, and if they choose, I hope to continue doing so this year. Cory Johnson - Cory has graciously handled HamWAN’s financial and legal filings and reports. I’m incredibly grateful for his efforts. Thank you Cory! Bart Kus - Bart continues to put enormous effort into the physical aspects of the network, acquiring new sites, installing and maintaining them, as well as some software projects, as well as acting as an administrator for the Puget Sound network day to day. Thank you Bart! Ryan Turner - Ryan heads our sister network in Memphis. Thank you Ryan! Nigel Vander Houwen - (me) I handle much of our contract work, and record keeping around technical aspects like LoAs, I serve as a day to day network administrator, and have helped deploy and maintain some of the on-network services, occasionally I manage to make a site visit to help out, and I handle things like the email you’re reading now. For anyone who wishes to run for the board, please send an email to the mailing list announcing your intention to run (You’ll see mine momentarily as an example). The voting period on your election will end 7 days after your announcement. Duties are not time intensive, and mostly consist of being available for occasional calls to approve expenses, and assisting HamWAN in whichever ways your time and/or skills/knowledge allow. Thank you all for reading this rather long email, and I hope to work with you all here in this next year. Nigel Vander Houwen

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Beacon Tower-Capital Park Backbone Link
by Randy Neals 01 Apr '18

01 Apr '18

Hi, I was digging through the HamWAN Map and Monitoring site to better understand the connectivity and redundancy of the backbone supporting the two key Seattle HamWAN sites, Beacon Tower and Capital Park. To recap what I observed... Documentation suggests *backbone connectivity at Capital Park* is: a. PtP link to Baldi b. PtP link to Paine The Capital Park to Baldi PtP actually appears to be a Point-to-Multipoint Link with 2 clients registered on the Baldi radio. I suspect that is Capital Park and Beacon Tower sharing access to a single dish/radio at Baldi. The Capital Park to Paine PtP seems to be decommissioned. *Question:* Am I correct in believing that Capital Park is single-threaded with just one backbone connection to Baldi operational? *Suggestion:* I think it might be prudent to have a direct PtP link between Capital Park and Beacon Tower. The sites are 4km apart with good visual line of sight. These two sites are very important to Seattle users. *Proposal:* 24 GHz is both an Amateur Radio band, and an ISM unlicensed band. This band works very well on short point to point paths. Further, 24.05 to 24.25 is an ISM band and can carry commercial traffic or amateur traffic. 24 GHz could be utilized on the Beacon Tower to Seattle EOC link. This link is very short (1.1 Miles/1.7 Km) and is a really good use case for 24 GHz. Equipment for 24Ghz is not particularly expensive. Mimosa announced a new B24 model on March 6 that has a $729 per end cost for integrated dish/radio. https://mimosa.co/products/specs/b24 Using 24 GHz to the EOC would allow the repurposing of the 5GHz link intended as Beacon-EOC to be a new backbone path Beacon Tower to Capital Park. I believe there is ample room at Capital Park to add a 2' dish pointing at Beacon. This path is about 4km and would not be suitable for 24 Ghz. The outcome of this proposal would be: 1. Seattle EOC-Beacon being linked at very high speed over 24 GHz. (circa 1 Gb/s) 2. Beacon Tower-Capital Park also having a high speed 5GHz backbone (circa 100 Mb/s) These key sites in Seattle would be less reliant on Gold, Baldi, and Haystack for connectivity within the City of Seattle/across town. There is an obvious cost implication for this change, but it's not particularly large and could make the network more robust. I'd be willing to contribute to this and others may also also do the same. Thanks for reading this and considering it. Randy W3RWN

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Re: [HamWAN PSDR] PSDR Digest, Vol 61, Issue 32
by Mark Weisenfeld 30 Mar '18

30 Mar '18

I have the following set to YES for Digest mode. *Set Digest Mode* If you turn digest mode on, you'll get posts bundled together (usually one per day but possibly more on busy lists), instead of singly when they're sent. If digest mode is changed from on to off, you may receive one last digest. Off On However, I still get several "Digests" a day, recently. I am a little surprised at that. Other groups I am subscribed to do not do this. If Mailman has a setting that determines when to send a digest, and it set really low, possibly to impress people like me that the group is a live and well and saying a lot of encouraging things, well ... it is working. But we may not need to have so many digests per day. It gets hard to digest (smerk).

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SnoDEM & East Tiger
by Nigel Vander Houwen 29 Mar '18

29 Mar '18

Evening everyone, After this last weekend’s upgrades, we ran into some trouble with the backup link we’ve been feeding SnoDEM with since we’ve been seeing the issues at Gold. Since then SnoDEM and East Tiger which is currently backhauled to SnoDEM were seeing problematic connectivity. At this point we’ve been able to restore the backup link, so you should see connectivity from the SnoDEM and East Tiger sites again. Thank you for your patience, and as always we appreciate all the help so many folks have volunteered. Nigel

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vote for Cory
by Sheppard, Mark 29 Mar '18

29 Mar '18

I vote Yah for Cory - Mark Sheppard

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OPP outage and vulnerability warning
by Tom Hayward 28 Mar '18

28 Mar '18

This morning I discovered a bunch of failed login attempts to HamWAN routers coming from other HamWAN routers. When checking the list of logged in users, there weren't any. Apparently something was able to remotely execute code on HamWAN routers without logging in. I think it may be related to this: https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=119255. Nigel and I worked to identify the traffic and patch the hole. We were able to stop it through a combination of firewall rules, disabling services, and upgrading software. One casualty is that upgrading the software on Seattle-ER1 broke the OPP IPsec configuration. We haven't figured out how to fix this, so OPP is down for now. To protect your equipment from this exploit, you can disable unnecessary services like this: /ip service disable telnet,ftp,www,api,winbox,api-ssl Make sure to do this from SSH so that you know it's working before disabling Winbox! This is a reminder of the importance of strict firewall rules. Nigel is a wise man. Tom

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Not running for board
by Ryan Turner 28 Mar '18

28 Mar '18

Hi PSDR, This year I will not be running for the board of directors. It was a pleasure serving on previous boards, and I intend to stay active in the mailing list. I need to focus on our local organization's growth in Memphis, and I do not want to stand in the way of Seattle's progress. I do not intend to be elected as a director. Thanks, K0RET

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VOTE: Board Director Elections - Doug Kingston
by Doug Kingston 28 Mar '18

28 Mar '18

Hello everyone, This is my announcement of intention to run as a board member for HamWAN. Voting will last for 7 days from this notice. I have been actively using HamWAN in the Puget Sound for over a year both as a client and helping with construction of Beacon Hill sector. As the president of PSRG and one of the primary engineers for Seattle ACS, I represent an important set of users and supporters, especially the EMCOMM community who are embracing this technology rapidly. I hope to help the HamWAN project with developing more partnerships, sites and support. I am also interested in improving the the suite of internally hosted services. -Doug- KD7DK

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