[aprssig] Connecting to the APRS-IS

[Tom Hayward]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 10:08 AM, Max Harper via aprssig
<aprssig at tapr.org> wrote:
> Are we not allowed to connect to the Tier 2 server of our choice anymore. I
> had shutdown my igate and made a symbol change and when I brought it back up
> it wouldn't connect to texas.aprs2.net. All I got was "FAIL - Connect to
> texas.aprs2.net:14580 failed: address resolution failure - errno=0" I used
> Texas because it was the most reliable server I had found. I had a link on
> my phone so I could check to make sure I remained connected.
>
> It sure would be nice if the aprs community would get notices of such
> changes.

No, you're not being blocked. An address resolution failure means that
the domain name system failed to find an IP address for
texas.aprs2.net. (In networking, being blocked for trying something
you're not allowed results in an "authorization" error.)

Tier2 has a rather sophisticated load balancing and failover system.
When a server like texas.aprs2.net goes down, within a few minutes
traffic will be automatically redirected to rotate.aprs2.net.
rotate.aprs2.net and regional rotates like noam.aprs2.net are
comprised of the set of eligible servers that score best. Scores are
based uptime, number of available slots, and response time. Poorly
performing servers are automatically demoted. For this reason, the
most reliable thing to put in your client is rotate.aprs2.net or your
regional rotate, noam.aprs2.net.

You can check the status of Tier2 servers and see what's currently
elected to the rotates here:
http://status.aprs2.net/
Full blue lines indicate the server is currently elected to
rotate.aprs.net (these change often). Blue over just the server name
indicates it is currently elected to a regional rotate.

Tom KD7LXL