dn42 is a decentralized

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

network built using

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

s and software/hardware

BGP Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it mak ...

routers. While other

darknet A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social ne ...

s try to establish anonymity for their participants, that is not what dn42 aims for. It is a network to explore routing technologies used in the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and tries to establish direct non- NAT-ed connections between the members. The network is not fully meshed. dn42 uses mostly

tunnels A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A Pipeline transport, pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used ...

instead of physical links between the individual networks. Each participant is connected to one or more other participants. Over the VPN or the physical links,

is used for inter AS routing. While

OSPF Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous syst ...

is the most commonly used protocol for intra AS routing, each participant is free to choose any other IGP, like Babel, inside their AS.

History

The DN42 project grew out of the popular PeerIX project started by HardForum members in mid-2009. The PeerIX project, while small in initial numbers grew to over 50 active members with a backlog of 100 requests to join the network. Ultimately the project was unable to meet the demand of user scale and eventually deprecated (though many of the core member team still have their networks online.) The founding members of the DN42 project tried to unsuccessfully rekindle the PeerIX project(through the private google group) and instead formed their own IPv6 only network, successfully scaling it to the size it is today.

Technical setup

Address space

Network address space for IPv4 consists of private

subnets A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. Updated by RFC 6918. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting. Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identica ...

: 172.20.0.0/14 is the main subnet. Note that other private address ranges may also be announced in dn42, as the network is interconnected with other similar projects. Most notably, ChaosVPN uses 172.31.0.0/16 and parts of 10.0.0.0/8,

Freifunk Freifunk (German for: "free radio") is a non-commercial open grassroots initiative to support free computer networks in the German region. Freifunk is part of the international movement for a wireless community network. The initiative counts about ...

ICVPN uses 10.0.0.0/8 and NeoNetwork uses 10.127.0.0/16. For IPv6, Unique Local Address (ULA, the IPv6 equivalent of private address range) (fd00::/8) are used. Please note that other network use IPv6 addresses in this range as well, including NeoNetwork's use of fd10:127::/32.

AS numbers

In order to use

, even in a private environment,

Autonomous System Numbers An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain, that presents a common and clearly defined ro ...

are needed. dn42 uses several private or reserved AS numbers ranges, including 64512 to 64855 and 76100 to 76199. Since June 2014, dn42 is now using a new private range, 4242420000 to 4242429999, part of larger private range defined by RFC 6996.

BGP routers

While some participants use hardware routers, most participants use general purpose servers or

virtual machines In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hard ...

to lower their cost. The most commonly used BGP implementation used in dn42 are

BIRD Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

and

FRR FRR may refer to: Organizations Sport * Forza Rossa Racing, a Romanian racing team * Furniture Row Racing, an American racing team * Romanian Rugby Federation (Romanian: ') Other organizations * Falls Road Railroad, in New York, United States * ...

, but some participants use

OpenBGPD OpenBGPD, also known as OpenBSD Border Gateway Protocol Daemon, is a server software program that allows general purpose computers to be used as routers. It is a Unix system daemon that provides a free, open-source implementation of the Border G ...

XORP XORP is an open-source Internet Protocol routing software suite originally designed at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California. The name is derived from ''eXtensible Open Router Platform''. It supports OSPF, BGP, RI ...

, GoBGP or the implementation of JunOS or

Cisco IOS The Internetworking Operating System (IOS) is a family of proprietary network operating systems used on several router and network switch models manufactured by Cisco Systems. The system is a package of routing, switching, internetworking, and ...

DN42 TLD

Websites and services hosted on the Dn42 network often use the dn42 top-level domain. The dn42 tld is not an official IANA top-level domain, but it is handled through the dn42 registry. Internal anycast servers for dn42 are found at 172.20.0.53, 172.23.0.53, and fd42:d42:d42:54::1, fd42:d42:d42:53::1.

Notes

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
Internet exchange points Virtual private networks Peer-to-peer computing Computer networking