jrouter/README.md

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

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

Caveats

Things I plan to fix Real Soon Now:

• ✅ Fixed It currently listens to all AppleTalk and AARP traffic on the EtherTalk port. This might not play well with other AppleTalk software, e.g. netatalk.
• ✅ Fixed Also it currently uses the default Ethernet address for the interface for sending packets. I plan to add the ability to configure a different address. You can now configure a different Ethernet address for the EtherTalk interface. I haven't tested it with netatalk or tashrouter on the same host, but I think using a distinct Ethernet address would help them coexist.
• It doesn't do any of the required packet splitting to keep packets under the AppleTalk size limits. In particular ZIP GetZoneList Replies are incorrect when the zone list would exceed the limit.
• It logs a lot and has no other monitoring or observability capability. I plan to add a Prometheus metrics endpoint and at least add log levels / verbosity flag.
• The AURP implementation is strictly incomplete, and lost connections with configured peers aren't re-established after some backoff. This won't be too difficult.

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 Barely Works™

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

TODO: explain the configuration file

Building and running:

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

• NET_BIND_SERVICE is needed to bind UDP port 387 (for talking between AIRs)
• NET_RAW is needed for EtherTalk

TODO: instructions for non-Linux machines