[HECnet] PyDECnet and IPv6

[John H. Reinhardt]

On 12/1/2020 4:15 PM, David Moylan wrote:
>> From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-
>> hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of John H. Reinhardt
>> Sent: Wednesday, 2 December 2020 6:18 AM
>> To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
>> Subject: Re: [HECnet] PyDECnet and IPv6
>>
>> I had an Edgerouter Lite for my internet but upgraded to an Edgerouter 4 last
>> year when I set up the VPN to the MacMini Colo in Las Vegas.
>>
>> Next I have to see if I can put Paul's PyDECnet on it for HECnet routing.
> That sounds like an awesome challenge, however I don't know if you'll meet the base requirements.
>
> The edgerouter 1.x firmware ships with Python 2.7.3 and the 2.x firmware ships with Python 2.7.13.
> Memory wise you have 1GB with around 600MB free on the ER4 and 500MB with around 200MB free on the ERL.
>
> And yes - you can add in linux packages to get Python 3 running on the Edgerouter, but I would recommend that you don't.
>
> The issue comes down to firmware upgrades. When you install a new firmware image, you risk breaking the third party addons.

Yep.  For years on the old Edgerouter Lite I had a separate BIND9 install to do DNS because the DNS that came with the ERL didn't do what I wanted. This was from about 2013 until 2016 sometime. It was a pain because of upgrades plus the fact that it would crash randomly so I had to implement a watchdog to restart it when it failed (check for very old threads on the Ubiquiti Community Forms for the ER - reinhardtjh).  I eventually gave up and build a RasPi DNS/DHCP server that's been running solidly for years now.  I also put the Ubiquiti UniFi Network Controller software for my AP on the RasPi.  That's probably where I will put the PyDECnet router.  But sometimes I just like the idea of having the TCP/IP and DECnet routers on the same box.  But it's probably not worth the trouble.

> I implemented an Edgerouter at home to replace my Linux box which acted as a firewall for years. The fact that the router is now disjointed from any of my servers is a good thing, because I can upgrade/change/replace firmware and config on my router without concern that I'll break any additional network functionality. I don't want a router update (which is currently a seamless and clean experience) to become more of a "server" update.
>
> But please don't let me convince you that it can't be done, because I feel that it most certainly could be done.

Yes, I'm sure it could but it has the disadvantages we have mentioned above.

> The 1.10.11 (which is what I run on most of my devices) has been stable and unpatched since March 2020. It's also pretty much guaranteed to be the last 1.x release
> The 2.x series is under regular release (2.0.9 came out 19-NOV-2020).

My ER 4 is running V2.0.3 from 02-MAY-2019.  I had tried V1.0.9 but had issues with the VPN connection.  I have an always up VPN to a MacMini running VMWare ESXi which has a guest running Ubuntu 18.04 and a VyOS guest acting as the firewall/router/VPN endpoint.

> Cheers, Wiz!!
>

-- 

John H. Reinhardt