Allstar linking on private LAN
I thought I might start here.I am considering moving from hardware-based controllers (RLC, Arcom, Zetron) to Pi/DRA interface/controllers. I picked up several DRA-30 interfaces and built them (Thank you Kevin!).
But I have never really messed with Allstar. I though I should ask some questions first.
I have both layer 2 and layer 3 connectivity between my sites at several hundred mbps availability and low latency. I use VLAN tagging to segment traffic on both layers. While I do have internet access at all my sites, I intend to make this entirely private, none of the nodes connect to ASL.
Inspired by K5TRA controller project on his website, using a couple Pis and several interfaces to essentially build a multiport controller at each site to control repeaters and link certain repeaters to other repeaters at different sites.
Questions:
- What is needed to make this work, do I need a single server (pi with no interfaces attached) in the network, or can I have two servers, one as failover.
- Which would be a better network to operate this the flat layer 2 or a routed layer 3? (all devices will have static private IP’s address)
- What do I configure differently in the server than I do in a node?
- Some repeaters will mostly be standalone (not linked) others will be linked to other repeaters at other sites 100% of the time.
- With the DRA-30 how to enable a GPIO OUT low to enable PL encode? Or more specifically can I configure a node to transmit ID without sending PL. Sorry I don’t like to listen to IDs blast away all day. But if the external decoder decodes the right PL tone then the GPIO goes low enabling transmit PL?
