jrouter

Home-grown alternative implementation of Apple Internet Router 3.0

Goals

• Full compatibility with Apple Internet Router 3.0
• Function on modern operating systems
• EtherTalk support
• Be observable (there's a HTTP server with a /status page)

TashTalk could be a stretch goal, if I can acquire one!

Things that used to be caveats

• Previously it would listen for all EtherTalk traffic, regardless of destination. Now it doesn't do that, which should help it co-exist with other routers on the same host.
• You can configure an alternate Ethernet address if you are reusing the same network interface for multiple different EtherTalk software.
• In addition to the configured EtherTalk network and zone, it now learns routes and zones from other EtherTalk routers, and should share them across AURP.
• There's a status server. Browse to http://[your router]:9459/status to see information about the state of jrouter.

Caveats

Things I plan to fix Real Soon Now:

• Some packet types need splitting to fit within limits. Some of these aren't implemented yet (mainly encapsulated). The unimplemented ones seem unlikely to hit those limits unless you are running a lot of routers or zones locally.
• I plan to add a Prometheus metrics endpoint and at least add log levels / verbosity config.
• The AURP implementation is mostly there, but not fully complete. The main thing missing is sequence number checking.

Things I plan to fix At Some Point:

• For expediency I made it act as a seed router. At some point I might add "soft seed" functionality.

How to use

WARNING: It Sorta Works™

First, set up a jrouter.yaml (use the one in this repo as an example).

TODO: explain the configuration file

Building and running:

1. Install Go.

2. Run these commands (for Debian-variety Linuxen, e.g. Ubuntu, Raspbian, Mint...):

sudo apt install git build-essential libpcap-dev
go install gitea.drjosh.dev/josh/jrouter@latest
sudo setcap 'CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE=ep CAP_NET_RAW=ep' ~/go/bin/jrouter

3. Configure jrouter.yaml

4. To run:

~/go/bin/jrouter

Notes:

• git is needed for go install to fetch the module
• build-essential andlibpcap-dev are needed for gopacket, which uses CGo
• NET_BIND_SERVICE is needed for jrouter to bind UDP port 387 (for talking between AIRs)
• NET_RAW is needed for jrouter to listen for and send EtherTalk packets

TODO: instructions for non-Linux / non-Debian-like machines

Bug reports? Feature requests? Complaints? Praise?

You can contact me on the Fediverse at @DrJosh9000@cloudisland.nz, or email me at josh.deprez@gmail.com.