I tried searching this forum to avoid repeating the topic, but I was not able to find it. So I recently built my own AllStar Node using ASL3, and I am able to connect to user nodes and repeaters when I am connected to my home wifi, but once I switch to Cell Data (tried Verizon and Att&t), and when I try to connect to their node, it tells me connection failed. If I try to connect to a repeater, it connects without issue. Is there something I am doing wrong or need to change to make it work?
It's likely a lack of direct connectivity to your node on hotspot.
There's this funny thing with the IAX protocol where it really likes to have both ends be reachable on the port. Instinct says you're dialing a node, you're connecting to it, they need to be rechable. But IAX works a bit differently. When you initially reach out to an IAX server for the handshake, it responds by opening a channel to you and using that for communication. So you can have cases where one side going out over NAT hits the other side for handshake; but the other side can't talk to the original party and the connection fails.
IPv4 on most mobile networks is CGNAT; so you'll never be able to have a node make that incoming connection to you. When you consider that most home nodes are behind NAT...it can get messy. But I think in your case...it's simply you don't have a connectable path back.
You say user nodes work on wifi but not on hotspot; I have to assume you tried the same user nodes. I'm going to assume you did...and work my theory based on that.
I don't have much explanation as to why repeaters work and user nodes don't outside of user nodes not having a port forwarded. But if that was the case, I'd assume the handshake would fail and nothing would work.
I....don't really have a clear explanation to that if the behavior of the same nodes are different between connections. But I think part of your problem is, when on hotspot, you both lack a path back to you from the internet. It's possible the IP they grabbed during registration changed 15 seconds later.
The only change I can think of involves a private VPN and policy routing all the asterisk traffic over that through a private endpoint that also forwards the IAX port back to you over that VPN.
There are known issues with using mobile networks. You can read more at ASL Manual / ASL Nodes on Mobile Hotspots
Correct, the wifi that I was talking about was my home network, and that works, but if I try mobile to the same node, it fails. I do have a VPN available that I can use to connect to my home network from my phone, which I will try to see if it changes anything. If it works, I just won't be able to use my Wi-Fi/hotspot in my car, since I pay for 4G there.
It is a Pi 4 4GB device that I am using today as I felt the 3 B+ was a little too slow. It worked with the HamVoIP but I thought ASL was a little too much for it. I will try the options in the link you posted as the Pi 5 are a little pricey right now. Do you think the 5 would fix my issue?
FWIW I run multiple ASL3 nodes on 3B/3B+ Pi's, no issues.
I want to throw some caution out that simply connecting to a VPN won't solve your problem. You will need to be able to tell your router to forward the port to your node over the VPN. This can be an issue if your router also isn't running your VPN is aware of the additional network.
The issue is the return path back to your node...it needs to be directly reachable from the internet at the IP that registers with ASL. So you need to then tell your router to send the IAX port to your node...which may not be possible if your router isn't aware of your VPN.
dewdude@59408-nq4t:~ $uptime
09:21:19 up 1 day, 13:43, 1 user, load average: 0.04, 0.05, 0.01
I don't know what you were doing because the 3B+ is more than enough to run ASL3. It's not that bloated. There's not a whole lot going on under the hood. Heck....my ASL3 does double duty as I run an MMDVMStack on the same hardware for an OpenGD77 radio.
Now some of the fancy dashboards might bog a system down because they're doing a lot of server-side rendering; but that's a dashboard. Allscan is pretty snappy on my node. And..I will add...my node is permanently routed through a VPN...so there's a little overhead for that.
A Wireguard VPN tunnel may solve your problem. I am using it to connect via AT&T mobile, Starlink, as well as my home network.