/g/thelinkbox

Echolink & IRLP Newsline server up for adoption

skip@... (Skip Hansen) — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 06:59:44 -0700

Hello everyone!

I've been running the EchoLink and IRLP newsline server
for more years that I can remember.

I retired last and now that I'm living on my savings and social security I
need to minimize my monthly costs...

The server consists of two instances of thelinkbox plus a couple
of scripts and configuration files running on a virtual private server that
I rent for $16/month.

The person that takes it over needs to be knowledgeable about thelinkbox
and Linux. Someone that already has a cloud server with extra bandwidth
would be ideal. I doubt much bandwidth is needed.

The person should also have a good relationship with the Echolink and

IRLP admins.

Please DM me if you are interested in taking over the responsibility for

the service.

Thanks & 73's Skip WB6YMH

Re: Port interconnection problem (solved)

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 18:16:00 -0700

You're welcome. I didn't do much, but looks like it was a minor configuration error that confused tlb. Commenting out the offending line did the trick.

For everyone else following, don't use a hostname for SF_Bind2IP. This should only ever set to an IP address, and even then, only if you know you need this setting. Most people don't need to use it. Most common usage scenarios for Bind2IP or SF_Bind2IP are when you're running multiple instances of tlb or tbd on the same physical host that has multiple IP addresses, or where you want to be certain what address tlb reports to the servers or the remote peers it connects to. And it seems using a hostname confuses tlb internally. It binds to 0.0.0.0 (all IPs), but doesn't seem to properly pass traffic on the Speak Freely (IRLP) ports. I consider this a bug in tlb, because the configuration parser should either reject this as an invalid IP(v4) or perform a DNS lookup and obtain the actual IP. The first option (rejecting anything that's not an IPv4 address) is the safest.

In this instance, connections could happen on a couple of IP addresses, so you actually don't want to set SF_Bind2IP here, hence the reason I commented it out, rather than setting it to a valid IP address.

On 13/7/24 2:58 am, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> I want to thank Tony for his help, the system is now working very well, thank you. As we say here in Mexico "he who knows, he knows..."

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 09:58:55 -0700

I want to thank Tony for his help, the system is now working very well, thank you. As we say here in Mexico "he who knows, he knows..."

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 22:48:07 -0700

Tony
Ok, let me know what do you want to do, no problem with access or anything you need.
XE1E Enrique.

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:51:00 -0700

I'm at the point where I'd need to examine your system in detail. I've covered everything I can think off, but without being able to interactively run tests and examine traffic, it's very hard to see subtle issues that might be breaking things.

On 12/7/24 2:47 pm, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> No firewalls in the path. All open.
Do you think it may be a port problem?
Why RTP yes and SF not work? Sorry for the question, but I don´t know much about this.
XE1E Enrique.

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:47:43 -0700

No firewalls in the path. All open.
Do you think it may be a port problem?
Why RTP yes and SF not work? Sorry for the question, but I don´t know much about this.
XE1E Enrique.

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:04:43 -0700

Hmm, I've never seen this level of stubborness. Are there any firewalls enabled in the path between the nodes?

On 12/7/24 2:03 pm, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> Tony
Changed RTP_Pass = ! but the problem stays on. All behavior as described.
XE1E Enrique

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:03:04 -0700

Tony
Changed RTP_Pass = ! but the problem stays on. All behavior as described.
XE1E Enrique

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:42:28 -0700

OK, let's do a test and set

RTP_Pass = !

Let's see if that makes everything work. Make that change, restart tlb and let me know if that fixes your problems.

On 12/7/24 1:40 pm, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> Tony
Yes TLB is exp0114 IRLP experimental node, my idea is only interconnect ASL to IRLP. Echolink and M17 are connected via one ASL node and DMR via another ASL node with DVSwitch and RF ports, all 3 computers connected via VPN in two remote sites. I have two internet connections.
XE1E Enrique.

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:40:09 -0700

Tony
Yes TLB is exp0114 IRLP experimental node, my idea is only interconnect ASL to IRLP. Echolink and M17 are connected via one ASL node and DMR via another ASL node with DVSwitch and RF ports, all 3 computers connected via VPN in two remote sites. I have two internet connections.
XE1E Enrique.

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:35:36 -0700

If this is an experimental IRLP node, try setting

RTP_Pass = ! # yes that is an exclamation mark, not a typo, and this is a comment.

This disables any access control on the Speak Freely ports. It does mean your system is wide open, but that's one of the issues with most experimental nodes. However, if you are only connecting a couple of specific nodes, you can put a weak level of security on the IRLP connections.

On 12/7/24 1:30 pm, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> Yes, ConfEnable is set to 0
Latest news: Only works OK betwen connections via RTP, I´m testing two ASL connections via RTP and all is OK, the problem appears to be Speak Freely connections.
Connections betwen two SF and/or RTP don´t work, I think is SF especific problem, how can I test Speak Freely? Any ideas?
XE1E Enrique.

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:31:32 -0700

As I said yesterday, that's not correct (certainly in my experience), but you do want this set to 0 to avoid echoing from multiple audio paths between some endpoints. So yes this is the correct setting, but not for the reason you think.

On 12/7/24 10:58 am, Fred via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]">
ConfEnable=0 make sure that's set properly. If it's not, it won't transcode codecs

On Thu, 2024-07-11 at 17:52 -0700, Enrique XE1E wrote:

I already achieved the connection between HamVoip and TLB without connection to Echolink, but the problem continues. IRLP nodes can connect without problem but they do not listen to each other, they do not activate PTT, I can hear them perfectly on AllStar but in IRLP they do not listen me, I do not activate the PTT.
What else can I check?

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:30:25 -0700

Yes, ConfEnable is set to 0
Latest news: Only works OK betwen connections via RTP, I´m testing two ASL connections via RTP and all is OK, the problem appears to be Speak Freely connections.
Connections betwen two SF and/or RTP don´t work, I think is SF especific problem, how can I test Speak Freely? Any ideas?
XE1E Enrique.

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:29:36 -0700

Is tlb an experimental IRLP node? I need to know more about the system, as I have other ideas as to what might be going on.

On 12/7/24 10:52 am, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> I already achieved the connection between HamVoip and TLB without connection to Echolink, but the problem continues. IRLP nodes can connect without problem but they do not listen to each other, they do not activate PTT, I can hear them perfectly on AllStar but in IRLP they do not listen me, I do not activate the PTT.
What else can I check?

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

w5mgm@... (Fred) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 17:58:33 -0700

ConfEnable=0 make sure that's set properly. If it's not, it won't transcode codecs

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 17:52:45 -0700

I already achieved the connection between HamVoip and TLB without connection to Echolink, but the problem continues. IRLP nodes can connect without problem but they do not listen to each other, they do not activate PTT, I can hear them perfectly on AllStar but in IRLP they do not listen me, I do not activate the PTT.
What else can I check?

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 19:31:07 -0700

It should be possible to do what you want. However, your mileage may vary with AllStar and chan_RTP. I have had various issues - some seem to be bugs, others seem to be implementation details on one end or the other. My experience has been with ASL rather than HamVoIP. Some of the issues I've had include:

Each RTP connection from the AllStar node has to be defined separately and each must terminate on a different port (obviously) and IP (annoying if, like me, you have multiple instances on the same IP, different ports!).

RTP links may fail in various modes and can sometimes require a restart of AllStar to get going again.

Again, experiment and watch. Again, HamVoIP may or may not be better than ASL in this regard.

On 11/7/24 6:08 am, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> Tony
Yes only software ports. My idea is to use TLB to link IRLP with ASL, Echolink link it through Allstar's Echolink channel. Is it possible to do this?
Radio ports are in the Allstar node.
XE1E Enrique.

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

vk3jed@... (Tony Langdon) — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 19:24:27 -0700

I've had issues with that directive in the past (on some systems tlb would crash if set), so there's likely bugs there. I normally set LoginInterval = 0 to stop logins to the Echolink servers. If the port is an issue, I define a private alias on the Ethernet interface and use Bind2IP to bind the Echolink port to that. Usually have to set SF_Bind2IP to the IP you want IRLP and RTP (for AllStar) to listen on.

On 11/7/24 6:01 am, Enrique XE1E via groups.io wrote:

[email protected]"> Something else I'm noticing, when I put EcholinkEnable = 0 in tlb.conf I can't make a connection between Allstar and TLB, the connection fails within 10 seconds, with IRLP without problem, is this normal?
XE1E Enrique.

-- 
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 13:08:07 -0700

Tony
Yes only software ports. My idea is to use TLB to link IRLP with ASL, Echolink link it through Allstar's Echolink channel. Is it possible to do this?
Radio ports are in the Allstar node.
XE1E Enrique.

Re: Port interconnection problem

xe1e.enrique@... (Enrique XE1E) — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 13:01:11 -0700

Something else I'm noticing, when I put EcholinkEnable = 0 in tlb.conf I can't make a connection between Allstar and TLB, the connection fails within 10 seconds, with IRLP without problem, is this normal?
XE1E Enrique.