ARRL Michigan Section Digital Radio Group (DRG)

Definition of a Hamgate:

The requirements for becoming a "Hamgate" are:

      1) A willingness to be THE *DEFAULT GATEWAY* FOR *ALL* THE TRAFFIC IN
         YOUR ASSIGNED SUBNET OR ENTIRE COUNTY
            o Everyone will be depending upon you!
            o This involves being online 7x24
            o Having a dependable Internet connection during extended power
              failures (usually rules out Cable). T1, DSL, and ISDN work well.
            o Some form of UPS *and* generator backup power

      2) Does the site have the adaquate RF footprint to reach all parts of
         the county where you have packet users?
            o The whole point of being a Hamgate is to "service" the users in
              your assigned subnet.  If your RF footprint is too poor, then
              the users needs have not been met.

      3) Does the site have a FIXED/STATIC IP address available to assign
         to the JNOS box?
            o Hamgates reach one another by fixed IP address (dotted-quad) and
              *NOT* by a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) such as
              blah.domain.com (this issue is NOT subject to change)
            o NAT (Network Address Translation) is frowned upon but can be
              used in some situations

      4) Is the IP address simply 'routed' or will it be going through a
         firewall?
            o If a firewall is used for NAT, it *MUST* do "DNAT" so the
              ports/services remain open at all times to the outside Internet.
            o The JNOS box's public IP address MUST respond to ping
            o Firewalls are the biggest farce on the Internet and cause more
              outages and problems and eat more man-hours troubleshooting than
              they are worth.  Any firewall in front of a JNOS/Hamgate *MUST*
              cleanly pass the following protocols WITHOUT interference:

                 Telnet                 --- for remote system maintenance and 
                                            remote user access
                 FTP                    --- for system maintenance
                 Finger                 --- for performance monitoring
                 Ping (ICMP)            --- for network monitoring
                 Protocol-4 IPIP Encap  --- for connectivity with the rest of the
                                            worldwide network
                 Others that may be needed:
                 HTTP                   --- web services
                 NTP                    --- time/clock syncronization
                 Remote (UDP)           --- Remote reset/reboot & route table maint.


      5) If the JNOS box must sit behind a firewall, that firewall *MUST*
         pass Protocol-4 "IPIP Encapsulation" or this is a NO-GO deal.
            o IPIP Encapsulation is what makes this network work. Without it
              there is no network. Many firewalls (cheapie consumer junk like
              LinkSys, etc.) are often incapable of passing this protocol.
              Cisco and other commercial grade firewalls are easily configured
              to pass Proto-4 IPIP encap and do it quite well.
            o For the "IT guy" who is really just a noobe... Protocol-4 IPIP
              Encapsulation is *not* TCP and you *cannot* do Port Forwarding!!
              In many cases low-end firewalls will not even pass Proto-4 to the
              DMZ, hence the desire to have our Public IP address 'routed' and
              not firewalled :)