IRLP and App_rpt

Hello (and Welcome!) Sal,

I also moved to Allstar from IRLP and would be glad to help...

I have a dedicated IRLP node that I want to convert to IRLP / Allstar

Unfortunately, Dave Cameron demanded that IRLP support be removed from Allstar.. AFAIK, he will not permit any interaction between the networks. I decided to leave IRLP in the dust several years ago and move my nodes to Allstar and Echolink. Once you get an idea of the features list vs. IRLP, it's no contest. For example, Allstar has the ability to run multiple nodes per Internet IP address, and there are more ways to control your node than you can imagine.

Can I use the IRLP board or must I add a Asterisk URI board ?

Yes, you can use your IRLP board for PTT, COS and Aux. The only thing you'll need to add to put your existing hardware on Allstar is a CM108 or CM119 based USB sound fob. The URI is a super-duper CM108 fob with a super-duper price tag to go with it. In your case, I'd buy a generic CM108 fob and use it unmodified. Allstar does not allow the use of analog sound cards such as Sound Blasters or worse yet, the on-motherboard sound cards.

Can I load the App_rpt software on top of the IRLP software ?

Technically, yes. You could disable the IRLP software from loading and install Asterisk and app_rpt, and compile. Personally, I wouldn't go to all of that trouble. Grab a spare hard drive (or back up your existing one) and install the ACID CD found here: *note-the ACID installer will repartition and format your hard drive!*

http://209.159.155.200/drupal/node/68

You also might want to check out this how-to from my web page:

73

Kyle
K0KN
Olathe, KS

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Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:14:10 -0800
From: "Sal P. De Franco"
To: app_rpt-users@ohnosec.org
Subject: [App_rpt-users] IRLP and App_rpt

--- Original Message ---

Hello,

I just signed up for Allstar.
I have a dedicated IRLP node that I want to convert to IRLP / Allstar.

Can I use the IRLP board or must I add a Asterisk URI board ?

Can I load the App_rpt software on top of the IRLP software ?

Sal
N6SPD

Kyle,

I have seen this post and it looks promising but how would this work if the former IRLP node is a Raspberry Pi? How does the keying of this config file trigger the pins on the GPIO to the IRLP board? If I’m assuming correctly, this is for an existing x86 PC with a dedicated parallel port.

Shaun - KB3CXQ

Hello Shaun…

I’ve been away from IRLP for roughly a decade, but it looks to me like the pIRLP system adapts the parallel port IRLP card to connect to the Pi. Biggest difference here is that I don’t believe Allstar / app_rpt supports PTT/COS via Raspberry Pi GPIO.

Assuming that’s still the case, the biggest hurdle you’d be facing is moving the PTT and COS over to a CMxxx fob.

Looks like pinout info is available here: Index of /R_Pi

73

Kyle
K0KN

David is aware that Hamvoip has IRLP support in their code. I believe he is softening on his position. I believe he is addressing it when there are actual problems and not wholesale prohibiting it. He also wants to make sure people are actually purchasing his board. I heard there were some problems with that in the past. It would be best and courteous to check with him before connecting the two systems. We are not against putting support back in the Allstarlink code.

Todd
KM6RPT

Is this recent? About a year ago I loaded Hamvoip and enabled IRLP with our node info. I then turned off the IRLP system and ran the Hamvoip version on the same IP the IRLP was on. It took all of a week to get the IRLP node number blocked from the IRLP system. It took two days of back and forth emails with Dave, apologizing to get it reinstated, only after I disable the Hamvoip IRLP and turned back on the IRLP system. It sure would be nice to not to have to have an entire separate system on the mountain top just for IRLP.

I believe the official IRLP position (in fact, I have an email from Dave Cameron stating so) is that they don’t care about Allstar/IRLP interconnectivity as long as the IRLP connection is a reflector

1 Like

The issue AllStar never really addressed was that end nodes aren’t allowed to cross link IRLP with another network. I did some work on this, but was using a system that used separate software for IRLP/Echolink (a highly modified EchoIRLP) and AllStar…

I believe it is possible to have cross system lockouts using external scripting on an AllStar node (there are hooks), but haven’t attempted this on anything like a HamVoIP node.

AH6LE is correct in that reflectors are an exception, because reflectors only accept inbound connections on IRLP. But any cross links with reflectors should be done with the approval of the reflector owner. Or in my case, be the reflector owner. :slight_smile: I do have a reflector channel permanently linked to AllStar. IRLP 9550 is linked to AllStar 27154 (and a bunch of other modes). Dave is certainly aware of the cross links I’ve done on my reflector. In fact, having somewhere to update Echolink integration was one of the reasons I got the reflector installed.

Todd, if you can put in means to prevent IRLP and other modes being cross linked (i.e. you can connect to IRLP OR you can connect to another mode, but not both at the same time), that would go a long way to softening Dave’s stance on this. Strictly speaking, Echolink has a similar policy (it’s written somewhere on their website), but in practice, it’s not enforced anywhere near as strictly as it is on IRLP.

Only IRLP nodes that can be cross linked are reflectors (with the authorisation of the reflector owner) and experimental nodes (you’re free to do anything with those).

So we only connect to two Reflectors and only two reflectors via cron job linking with the permission of those two reflector owners and we’re still banned by IRLP. This was in February of this year. Here’s the email we received for running Hamvoip with IRLP enabled:

“So you are aware, as soon as the IRLP server saw that your key was moved
to a system not running IRLP software, your PGP key was removed from the
keyring, rendering both systems dead.

If the system is brought online again, it will happen again.”

That is from Dave. So unless his view on the matter has changed in 6 months…

I’d rather ditch the system entirely and exclusively run ASL, but having a 8,000 foot level repeater in Southern California the users want IRLP.

Hmm, I wonder how he knows what software you’re using. And yeah, there’s a lot to be said for having everything in one box, especially when it’s on top of a mountain! I like IRLP and I like AllStar. Actually have an IRLP node to rebuild. It will be integrated with an ASL 2.0 node, but using a totally different technique and with all the necessary cross system lockouts (an extension of the technique I used in EchoIRLP 18 years ago).

My conversation with him was well over a year ago. I suspect he had some problems with some nodes and therefore took additional steps to prevent people from doing it.