[App_rpt-users] Some questions regarding Apt-RPT and AllStarLink

[Jeremy Utley]

Hello all!

 

Relatively new to Apt_rpt and AllStar, so forgive me if this is a rehash of
something that's already been done.  I've recently been put in charge of
maintenance of our local 2m repeater for our club.  I'm new to running
repeaters, so I wanted to really learn by doing, and am planning to do this
by rebuilding old, currently defunct 440 machine that's been off the air for
a year now.  I've already been in touch with the local freq coordinator, and
ensured we are still coordinated on our old frequency, and we're currently
in the hardware acquisition phase.  I'm planning to use AllStar DIAL on an
RPI-3 as the controller for the new repeater, and if all goes well, I'll
eventually replace the current NHRC-3 controller on the 2-meter side with
another Pi-3 running Dial, and set up a permanent link between the 2m and
440 machines.

 

Question 1 is related to the underlying networking.  Our repeater site is a
tower for a rural wireless ISP, so it already has internet connectivity
there.  The problem is, the guy running the ISP has some "odd" opinions on
how to run things, and is stubborn enough to not listen to reason as to why
what he's doing is a bad idea - the end result being the systems will be
behind a Double-NAT, with what amounts to no possibility to do proper
port-forwarding to AllStar.  Leaving this tower site is pretty impatctical
(the guy running the site is also a ham, and actually lets us use the site
for free), so I've been trying to come up with a way to get around this
port-forwarding issue.  As an IT guy by trade myself, I do have access to a
co-located server with multiple IPv4 IP's allocated to it.  So my thinking
is, at the repeater site, I'll set up a Microtik router, that establishes an
OpenVPN connection to my colo server.  Each of the RPi's will be tunneled
via the OpenVPN connection to the colo server, and use it's own dedicated IP
address from there.  In theory, this would remove the double-NAT,
effectively replacing it with a single NAT layer that I control totally.  I
don't see any real reason this could not work from a network standpoint
(I've done similar things at work in the past using VPN tunnels), but maybe
there's something specific to the AllStarLink software that precludes this
from working.  The more I think about it, I could potentially even use an
Ethernet bridge at the machine in the colo and simply provide public IP's
across the VPN tunnel, effectively eliminating NAT altogether.

 

Question 2 is more of a policy question - I've registered my personal
callsign with AllStar, and gotten a node number for a simplex link that's
going to be my first node on the network (to learn a little more before I
actually start to build the new repeater).  Should I also register our club
callsign and set up the repeater nodes under that (I am the trustee for the
club call), or make additional nodes under my personal call for those?

 

Thanks for your time in reading thru this, and for the help!

 

Jeremy Utley, NQ0M

Iola, KS

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