Those who want to do "out of the ordinary"

[tuctboh]

Hi,

    I was looking to find others who are looking to do things that DWAY considers "out of the ordinary" (Like not have NAT running, allow incomming connections, use REAL operating systems like FreeBSD) to try to solve things together, or share what I've done.

Thanks, Tuc

[tommie gorman]

   For some of us simple users you might take out some of the abbreviations and say it in plain english. Please!  Tom

[tuctboh]

  For some of us simple users you might take out some of the abbreviations and say it in plain english. Please!  Tom

Hi Tom,

    Only abbreviation I really see is NAT (Network Address Translation) unless you didn't see that DWAY is DirecWay. FreeBSD is an operating system, and Tuc is my name.

Tuc

   

[JimPrice]

Tuctboh:

Incoming connections are already supported, if you choose to have a publicly available IP.  Although NAT remains enabled, if you use your static IP, NAT is simply bypassed in the whole process.

Fundamental to Dway performance, are downstream proxy servers that achieve a high rate of compression; without them, no good browsing/transfer speeds would be achiveable, which is why HTTPS is so damn slow...can't cache SSL without defeating the purpose of it, which is security. 

The newer implementations of Dway (6000 & 7000) no longer require controlling software to be present on the user's computer, therefore OS choice is not an issue either.  I've run FreeBSD and several flavors of Linux over my connection without issue.  IP is just IP on the user's side of the SatModem.  I regularly use my connection to suport incoming HTTP and FTP requests for business associates.

Just what exactly are you looking to do that would be beyond the scope of what's already possible?

[ghostmaster]

The direcway NAT can be defeated by a program called Hamachi. (http://www.hamachi.cc)  It allows for the creation a personal private P2P network.  The Hamachi servers assign each network addresses from the unregistered 5.x.x.x range, and are only accessible from within your private network.  This works well for remote access into your DWAY network without a static (public) IP.

[tuctboh]

The DirecWay NAT can be defeated by a program called Hamachi. (http://www.hamachi.cc)  It allows for the creation a personal private P2P network.  The Hamachi servers assign each network addresses from the unregistered 5.x.x.x range, and are only accessible from within your private network.  This works well for remote access into your DWAY network without a static (public) IP.

Hi Ghostmaster,

    The problem with that solution is that all the computers you want to use to get to the one in the DWAY network need to be running the software. If I wanted to get it via my FreeBSD machine, then I'd be SOL. (As a side note, I'm surprised they jacked the 5.0.0.0/8 network....)

    Personally I'm solving this using a single board computer (Soekris) running FreeBSD and then I OpenVPN it back to my server. Right now I have it set on private IP's, that the Soekris gets full access via my server, but the world can't see the Soekris. The next step is that I plan to put a subnet onto my DWAY network and route it via the Soekris. They would be using publicly routed IPs, unlike the 5.0.0.0/8 and could be access from any machine that is on the net.

    Tuc

[tuctboh]

Tuctboh:

Incoming connections are already supported, if you choose to have a publicly available IP.  Although NAT remains enabled, if you use your static IP, NAT is simply bypassed in the whole process.

Fundamental to Dway performance, are downstream proxy servers that achieve a high rate of compression; without them, no good browsing/transfer speeds would be achiveable, which is why HTTPS is so damn slow...can't cache SSL without defeating the purpose of it, which is security. 

The newer implementations of Dway (6000 & 7000) no longer require controlling software to be present on the user's computer, therefore OS choice is not an issue either.  I've run FreeBSD and several flavors of Linux over my connection without issue.  IP is just IP on the user's side of the SatModem.  I regularly use my connection to suport incoming HTTP and FTP requests for business associates.

Just what exactly are you looking to do that would be beyond the scope of what's already possible?

Hi Jim,

    Thanks for the reply!

    I guess I need to clarify a little. This is being used in a rentable beach house in Corolla, NC (4WD area, oceanfront, 8 bed, 8.5 bath...PM me if interested. ) so I didn't go "all out" on it. I've got the lowest level of service, so any time I talk to them about anything I get the "Your on a consumer plan, if you upgrade to Pro then you MIGHT be able to do it".

    I realize about the compression. Its been a marked difference when I use the built in proxy. I did implement LZO compression in an OpenVPN tunnel I have between a box there and a server at my datacenter (I run a small dual homed Managed Server Hosting/Colocation company now, used to run a much larger one).  I haven't implemented SQUID or anything on that box yet to see if my own proxying and compression would be as effective.

    The new D6K and D7K might be able to use other OS's, but every time I call and talk to them about it, they immediately start in with "Not supported, call back when you have something we support". So I was trying to hook up with people who use alternate OS's and run into problems trying to help them out. For example, if I run my FreeBSD there, I seem to have issues if I try to run my own locally caching DNS server. It acts pretty weird. I didn't get a straight answer if they are doing weird things on DNS requests. I wanted to see if others saw that and what they did to resolve it. I simply just tunnel all my DNS requests back to my datacenter, which solves that. I also run into the issue that quite frequently I have TCP accelerator issues. When I call and they see via the MAC (Which I'm *REALLY* tempted to change) that I'm running an Internet Sharing device, they immediately want me to disconnect it and go back to a plain Winderz system. They also seem to tell me that  my equipment is causing a static buildup in my modem, and thats why I run into alot of problems. Granted, this isn't the 1/4 million dollar fibre network I built in my datacenter, but I have cisco switches and higher end equipment at the house and I can talk TCP/IP down to the packet level and I've never heard of "static" building up in a modem because of equipment connected on the network. So if anyone else was having this issue often I wanted to sync up and see what they are doing. I just wrote a bunch of perl scripts for monitoring, MRTG graphing and if its down too long to reboot the modem up to 3 times before giving up. I'd love to get SNMP off the D7K and graph directly from there.

    I guess some of what I wanted to talk with others about falls into some of what I've mentioned above.

Tuc

[ghostmaster]

There is a linux version of Hamachi....Have you tried using it on FreeBSD?....Sounds like you have a pretty sweet setup, and it also sounds like you have plenty of money to do all of this lol.  So I don't understand why you wouldn't want to upgrade to Pro with a static IP, or at least Pro.  It makes things a lot easier.

As far as static buildup is concerned.  The networking equipment will not cause static buildup in the modem, but if your transmitter is not properly grounded, it will cause static buildup, and cause you to have to reboot the modem constantly.  DirecWay support is useless when it comes to any of the stuff you are trying to do.  You have to remember that they are trained to help computer dummies.

If you want really technicle questions answered about Dway, visit http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat.  There are a lot of long time Dway users there that can help with the more technicle aspects of the system.

Oh and Dway only supports Windows and Macintosh....unfortunately....If you can talk to someone in engineering, you might be able to talk to someone that supports the Unix/Linux platform.

[tuctboh]

There is a linux version of Hamachi....Have you tried using it on FreeBSD?....Sounds like you have a pretty sweet setup, and it also sounds like you have plenty of money to do all of this lol.  So I don't understand why you wouldn't want to upgrade to Pro with a static IP, or at least Pro.  It makes things a lot easier.

As far as static buildup is concerned.  The networking equipment will not cause static buildup in the modem, but if your transmitter is not properly grounded, it will cause static buildup, and cause you to have to reboot the modem constantly.  DirecWay support is useless when it comes to any of the stuff you are trying to do.  You have to remember that they are trained to help computer dummies.

If you want really technicle questions answered about Dway, visit http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat.  There are a lot of long time Dway users there that can help with the more technicle aspects of the system.

Oh and Dway only supports Windows and Macintosh....unfortunately....If you can talk to someone in engineering, you might be able to talk to someone that supports the Unix/Linux platform.

Hi,

    No, I haven't tried Hamachi on FreeBSD under my Linux emulation, but it still doesn't resolve the issue that I find is bigger that is the IP allocated isn't public and that you need special software. Using OpenVPN, I can pull a subnet of the IP's currently on the datacenter server to the site. I'm in the process of finding out how to do it with a totally different subnet.

    Thanks for the compliment on the setup. Once I built the other network with all its redundancy (We had 3 different transit providers and an International Peering Exchange via Gig-Ethernet into 2 different routers, each with dual routing engines, dual power supplies, connected to 2 different generators) the thought of putting my personal server into some rack at a small ISP killed me. So when I shut the previous company down, I took some routers, some load balancers, a few switches, couple of servers and rebuilt it all on a much smaller scale (1 cabinet, 2 30A circuits on different UPSs and 2 1Mbs lines).

    As for the plenty of money, the issue I have is having to pay more for what I think should be able to be done from the beginning. I can with Cable. I can with Dialup. I can with DSL. I realize Satellite is a different beast, but still... The other issue is that if this was my home setup used 24*7 thats another story. The problem is its a rental beach house, which I should be getting about 20 weeks a year rented, of which 1/2 the weeks I figure someone will either use their own laptop or the house desktop for maybe 1/7th the time they are there. So that works out to 10  days a year the system will really get used (Well, once I stop going there every other week right now. {Between jobs...I'm in NY or Central/North NJ if someones hiring}).

    I was totally ignorant about the static/transmitter issue. I now really need to look into it. My antenna is mounted on a metal pole, in the sand with a concrete base. I'm not sure I can really do a lot of grounding easily, since all the piping in the house is PVC since its oceanfront. I think there is an external electrical panel within 10 feet of the antenna, would grounding it to the ground there be acceptable?

    Yea, they seemed really useless at Direcway, thats why I hoped to get people here to talk to that weren't as "cluefully impaired". I've joined the DSLREPORTS board (Sorry to the admin here) and we'll see what happens there.

Tuc

[ghostmaster]

Joining here was a good idea, there are a lot people here who may be able to benefit from your knowledge.  It's just that there are a lot more technicle DWAY and Wildblue people at the other site.  Grounding to the electrical box should cover the problem.  I'm guessing the installer grounded it to the pole, which aparently is a big no no.  I would think that grounding it to the pole would be useless, since the transmitter is attatched to the pole by way of the arm and dish.  Search the DSLreports forums for proper grounding procedures for the transmitter.  They have many threads with photos and such that will help you.