[Dxspider-support] Number of hops on a node

[Dirk Koopman]

On 28/01/2022 15:51, Joaquin . via Dxspider-support wrote:
> As you said, you and Dirk carry the weight of the DXCluster 
> development nowadays. You both have a lot of experience and I'm sure 
> you could open a dialogue forum in order to look for a new protocol 
> (say i.e. v2) that could coexist with the current one but giving it an 
> expiry date, so that the old programs could be migrated to the new 
> developments.

The forum exists... [cluster-tech]

>
> I know it's a big job, but you guys have shown that you are up to it, 
> and I don't think you wouldn't like a challenge like this ;-)

It is not, intrinsically, a big job (for me at least). Obviously is not 
a short job that can done in two hours either. No, the actual problem is 
that some level of compatibility has to be maintained with older 
(DXSpider & CC Cluster) nodes and, potentially, this is where the 
problems are. It is less of a problem than maintaining compatibility (as 
I do) with "old style" AK1A nodes, AR Cluster stuff anything out there 
that can process AK1A but not PC92 traffic.  But I would avoid putting 
in a translation layer like I have had to do for AK1A routing 
(PC16,17,19,21).

Even with nodes that do process PC92 traffic, there are issues. For 
example not all PC92 A records contain IP addresses. There are several 
nodes that use very old versions of DXSpider that do not send IP 
addresses. Then there is something that you are familiar with: 
webcluster nodes find it difficult to impossible to arrange for IP 
addresses to be passed on. And until that problem is fixed in a way that 
is easy for webclusters to use, then nothing really moves forward. There 
is no concept of a node *proxy* and therefore no mechanism to deal with 
such a thing.

Strangely, hoovering up all the stray sentences that are not dealt with 
by PC93 (anything like a talk, announce, chat, wx) is relatively simple. 
These include, in order of importance:

 1. Spots
 2. wwv, wcy
 3. User information (currently handled by PC41s)
 4. Pings (PC51)
 5. Rcmd & reply (PC34/35).  PC84/85 are obsolete clx rcmd/reply.
 6. Mail & Bulletins (PC28->33. 43, 49)
 7. Spot merging (from outside) (PC25) - last seen in 2006
 8. Remote "database" access (PC37, 44->48) - not used in the last 20 years
 9. Here status (PC24), seen but AFAIK not taken any notice of.
10. "keepalive" List (PC50 now obsolete)
11. Miscellaneous PC75 (never seen), PC38 (get remote config) obsolete
    (PC92C) and never seen anyway.

Of these, items 1-5 would be needed and could be PC94 Spot, Wwv, wcY, 
Ping, and rCmd,. Equally, they could all just be merged into PC93. As 
they all either announcements or (sort of) directed talks.

Item 6 can stay as it is, item 7 is discouraged, 8,10 and 11 dropped and 
item 9 is effectively dealt with with PC92 A and C. Or just discouraged 
as I don't know who or what it's aimed at.

Dirk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.tobit.co.uk/pipermail/dxspider-support/attachments/20220128/e390bff5/attachment.htm>