[aprssig] So long.... APRS-IS officially has lost 1/2 it's servers.

[Dave Anderson KG4YZY]

Hi everyone,

 

Some of you may have noticed that last night the core of the APRS-IS network
lost ½ of its servers.    I can only apologize to those of who this
impacted.   

 

My goal was not to create service interruption.    A month ago I advised
everyone publically and privately that I was exiting the APRS-IS network as
a core system operator on the last day of February.    Unfortunately it
appears no one else is willing to put up with the nonsense, as no other
servers have come online to fill the void my servers Ieave.  I can’t say I
blame anyone either, it’s a thankless job that takes a lot of abuse.    Let
me highlight a few of the reasons I left for those of you who may not have
read my first message.  I’ll make this one much shorter and to the point.

 

Last year, the tier2 group of sysops sent a letter to the citizen weather
observer program managers that they were withdrawing support from the
program.  That part is of no question, many of us have copies of this
letter.   The core sysop’s jumped up and decided to help this program out.
The fact that the tier2 guys apparently retracted their withdrawal,
unfortunately, was never passed on to us from the CWOP management.

 

So when we realized that three core servers could not do the job, I went out
and bought a brand new Dell dual CPU eight core server to take over the role
of fourth.  I then sent what was the old fourth box to my co-lo in Dallas to
become third.  That was supposed to be a temporary band aid until another
system operator could be found to take it over.  I didn’t –want- to be
responsible for ½ of the APRS-IS core traffic.  No one was ever found with
the means or capacity to run a core the size of third, so I was stuck
footing the bill for running ½ the core of the APRS-IS network.  My goal in
participating in APRS-IS was the betterment of the hobby.  Any of you who
know me should know I’m not afraid to spend some money to do that.  So life
went on. 

 

At the end of this past year we started having stability problems with the
server software we run.  Memory problems, lock ups, etc.  After months of
diagnosis and countless software builds in an attempt to find the cause, it
was finally determined it was the NON ham CWOP weather stations causing the
problem.  Over 2500 of them, using their computers clock, were sending in
weather reports in a swarm on the 5’s of the clock.   Anyone who works on
software can tell you that this was a poor design.   The CWOP management
refused to press hard on the developer of this flawed and damaging piece of
software to fix the problem.  They were more afraid the developer would quit
supporting the CWOP program.  They clearly didn’t care how much damage it
was doing to the APRS-IS network.  For that matter, the one CWOP manager
made it clear that if non hams had to reduce polling rates that hams had to
as well.  Excuse me?  Non hams are a guest on our network, not the other way
around.

 

Well any of you can read the forums archives from January to see what
happened there.  After it was all said and done, the decision to move CWOP
of the APRS-IS network was made, and several servers were setup just for
this purpose.  

 

I posted my disgust with things and the fact I was tired of being the
punching bag for every time something went wrong, so I announced here and in
many other forums that I was exiting the APRS-IS network as a core system
operator.   My month long advanced notice expired last night, so third and
fourth are no longer online.

 

It needs to be understood that CWOP non-hams are still causing problems with
the APRS-IS network.  I have observed on the 5’s as much as 4-7% packet loss
still.  These guys are willingly causing damage to our network and clearly
do not care one way or the other what damage this affects.       A new set
of non-ham servers has been setup, but until the draconian measure of
filtering non authenticated logins from passing data (what CWOP users are),
this damage will continue to be an issue as the non hams will never be
forced to make the move off of our network.    

 

Had this step been taken, I probably would have left fourth online, but
since it has not been taken, I have no option but to walk away 100%.

 

I would advise all of you to continue to put pressure to bear to get CWOP
off of the APRS-IS network.    

 

CWOP stations represent only 1/8 of the stations heard on APRS-IS, but take
¼ of the bandwidth!     

 

The CWOP management clearly does not care what damage is done to the APRS-IS
network, and has made it clear they view hams as more of the problem here.  

 

At any rate, as noted, my apologies for any difficulties that my exiting the
core servers has caused, but one can only be backstabbed and kicked so many
times before one backs away.

 

 

73,

 

Dave 

KG4YZY

 



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