What's a wormhole?
What's a gateway?
What's an Internet/AMPRnet gateway?

A wormhole is just a two-way ``data pipe'', say a phone line, that can accept packets on one end, and spits them out at the other end. There is only one possible destination. It is like an AX.25 digipeater, and in fact many wormholes are fashioned to look just like one.

A wormhole doesn't know or care what is in the packets; in particular, it doesn't do any routing. To use a wormhole, you have to know where its input port is so you can send your packets through it (as if it were a digipeater), and what stations are at the other end, so you can address packets to them.

A gateway, on the other hand, takes incoming packets, and makes a decision about how to forward on the packet, according to the details in the packet. It may be able to pass the packet directly to the destination, or it sends the packets to another gateway for further forwarding. This forwarding is transparent to users of IP encap gateways - they just specify the destination IP address and the gateway system takes care of the rest.

Ok, so how does this relate to an Internet/AMPRnet gateway? An Internet/AMPRnet gateway routes AMPRnet packets between areas that are far apart, by using the Internet as the medium. Packets are passed by first wrapping them (also known as `encapsulation') in an IP packet, sending them to a distant gateway, and unwrapping them there. This allows real-time long-distance TCP/IP communications. This method of encapsulation can also be used as a wormhole for AX.25 and NETROM communications.

You need to be running a TCP/IP Packet Station with one of the recent releases of JNOS or TNOS. JNOS and TNOS are popular Amateur Radio related programs that have been written to mimic the protocols used by the Internet. Both of these programs have as one of their main strengths the ability to utilize standard Packet Radio Protocols. First you need a place which has an Internet connection. Next you need to get permission to put amateur equipment (rig, antenna, PC) in, and then you need to get permission to connect the PC to the Internet. Getting these permissions is very dependent on your specific location, who you know and the rules there etc. If you are unsure about things, other people who have set up a gateway may be able to help you.

Yes, and if you are intending on setting up a gateway, or you are already doing so, you should join the mailing list. This way, you will learn of changes to the other gateways. To join, send some email to Tony Querubin AH6BW at gateways-request@lava.net , asking to subscribe. When you have subscribed, you can mail articles to the list by sending them to gateways-l@lava.net Currently, over 100 people are on the mailing list, and most are willing to help new gateway administrators.

Yes there is. The Internet machine ucsd.edu is the authoritative domain name server for the .ampr.org domain. Its information is available to all the other domain name servers on the Internet. Therefore, you do not need to include it in the list of domain name servers your gateway queries for information. Just use your local domain name servers.

The gateways also provide an excellent point for non-Internet'ers to get ampr.org information. If you can afford it, you should make your gateway a name server cache, and then AMPRnet people can use you as a domain name server. To do this under NOS, add the following commands:

• domain addserver your.local.dns
• domain addserver another.local.dns
• domain cache wait 30000
• domain cache size 200
• domain cache clean off
• domain maxwait 30
• domain start

First of all, you shouldn't update the .ampr.org nameserver if you have a local IP address coordinator for your region. If you do update the nameserver and then your local IP address coordinator does it, your changes will be lost. This information is only for those that do not have an IP address coordinator or is an IP address coordinator. I don't have the information for IP address coordinators in your area.

Brian Kantor (brian@ucsd.edu) runs a mail receiver which takes changes to the .ampr.org nameserver information, and puts them into the ucsd.edu authoritative server. Email to ampraddr@ucsd.edu goes to the mail receiver. If you send the word help by itself in the body of the email, you will get this reply describing how to send mail to ampraddr@ucsd.edu to get your domain name updates into .ampr.org:

The AMPRAddr robot performs mail-based maintenance of the AMPR.ORG Domain within the Internet Domain Name Service.

Input data consists of one or more lines of commands. each command must be complete on one line. Blank lines, and lines beginning with '#' or ';' are ignored.

Update format consists of 4 or 5 blank-separated fields per line.

Field 1 is a hostname. This is the database entry key; it must be a legal host name as defined in RFC1123. All hostnames are forced to lower case no matter how entered. Always omit '.ampr.org' Examples are:

• wb6kdt
• hamshack.ka9q
• 3b2.wb6wlv

• A - to add or delete an address mapping
• CNAME - to add or delete a hostname alias
• MX - to add or delete a Mail eXchanger