wiki/Getting-started-with-dn42.md

You want to join dn42, but you don't know where to start. This guide gives general guidelines about dn42 and routing in general, but it assumes that you are knowledgeable with routing.

Requirements

• you have at least one router running 24/7. Any Linux or BSD box can be turned into a router. If your home router runs OpenWRT, you might consider using it for dn42.
• your router is able to establish network tunnels over the Internet (GRE, OpenVPN, IPSec, Tinc...). Beware, your network operator might filter this kind of traffic, e.g. in schools or universities.
• you are generally knowledgable with networking and routing (i.e. you've heard about BGP, IGP, forwarding, and you're willing to configure a BGP router such as Quagga or Bird)

Formalities

Don't worry, it's not as tedious as registering with a RIR ;)

Subscribe to the mailing list

This is important, as it allows to stay up-to-date on best practices, new services, security issues...

See Home#Contact to subscribe.

Fill in the registry

You must create several objects in the registry. The recommended method is to use the web interface, but you may still work directly with the monotone repository.

This example assumes that your name is Luke, part of an organisation called the Rebel Alliance, and that you want to register an AS and a network block for your home network Naboo. You may easily extrapolate to the case of a hackerspace you're a member of.

Create a maintainer object

Create a mntner object named LUKE-MNT. It will be used to edit all the objects that are under your responsibility.

• choose a password, and don't forget it.
• use DUMMY-DN42 as admin-c and tech-c. We will update this later.
• use LUKE-MNT as mnt-by, otherwise, you won't be able to edit your maintainer object.

Create person objects

Create a person object for yourself.

• use LUKE-DN42 as nic-hdl, it should end with -DN42.
• the person field is more freeform, you may use Luke here.
• provide an email.
• you may provide additional ways of contacting you, using one or more contact field. For instance xmpp:luke@theforce.net, irc:luke42@hackint, twitter: TheGreatLuke.
• you may which to add other fields, such as pgp-id, pgp-fingerprint, remarks, and so on.
• don't forget to set mnt-by to LUKE-MNT.

You must now edit the maintainer object created earlier, to properly fill in the admin-c and tech-c fields (set them to LUKE-DN42).

Then create a person object for your organisation:

• nic-hdl is REBEL-ALLIANCE-DN42.
• email should be a contact address for your organisation, or maybe a mailing list (but people should be able to send email without subscribing).
• contact could be an irc channel (e.g. #rebelalliance@irc.theforce.net).
• you may provide a website (www field).
• don't forget to set mnt-by to LUKE-MNT, since you're managing this object on behalf of your organisation.

Guidelines for future objects

From now on, you should use:

• admin-c: LUKE-DN42 and tech-c: LUKE-DN42 for your own resources.
• admin-c: REBEL-ALLIANCE-DN42 and tech-c: LUKE-DN42 for the resources of your organisation.

This applies to AS numbers, network prefixes, routes, DNS records...

Register an AS number

To register an AS number, simply create an autnum object.

Your AS number can be chosen arbitrarily in the dn42 ASN space, look at the as-block objects. The historic ASN space is around 64600-64855, and there is also a new range 76100-76200. In the future, a new range might be allocated in the range 4000000000-4294967295 (new 32-bit private ASN range).

If unsure, ask on the mailing list or IRC.

Register a network prefix

To register an IPv4 network prefix, simply create an inetnum object.

You may choose your network prefix in one of the currently open netblocks. There is also a graphical visualisation of the assigned ranges.

The current guideline is to allocate a /25 by default, keeping space for a /23. You may allocate more than a /25 if you need to, but no more than a /23. In particular, if you want reverse DNS for your prefix, you will need at least a /24. (check? maybe the scripts in the repo are clever enough)

Get some peers

In dn42, there is no distinction between peering and transit: by default, everybody serves as an upstream provider to all its peers.

If you don't know anybody who can peer with you, ask on IRC or the mailing list.

Establishing tunnels

Unless your dn42 peers are on the same network, you must establish tunnels. Choose anything you like: OpenVPN, GRE, GRE + IPSec, IPIP, Tinc, ...

There is some documentation in this wiki, like gre-plus-ipsec.

Running a routing daemon

You need a routing daemon to speak BGP with your peers. People usually run Quagga or Bird, but you may use anything (OpenBGPD, XORP, somebody even used an old hardware router).

Some documentation of the old wiki might still be handy, but remember that everything there is terribly outdated.

Configure DNS

See Services DNS.

Use and provide services

See internal for internal services.

Don't hesitate to provide interesting services, but please, document them on the wiki! Otherwise, nobody will use them because nobody can guess they even exist.