[HamWAN PSDR] CapitolPark <-> QueenAnne link

Bart Kus me at bartk.us
Thu Mar 29 23:17:35 PDT 2018


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 at 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=919&rra_id=all>. 
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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