Date: Sat, 1 Mar 97 11:12 PST From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) To: Steve Goldstein , Gwen Clavon Cc: NSRC Tech Crew Subject: Quarterly Report of NSRC (NCR-9616597) for 96.10.1 - 96.12.31 Summary This report is an overview of the first quarter of FY97 for the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) project, now working in collaboration with the Advanced Network Technology Center (ANTC) at the University of Oregon. The NSRC gathers, organizes, and disseminates information, training, and tools to local organizations in developing countries so they can acquire affordable networking technology and use it to join the Internet. Assistance to Specific Countries Following are a few specific examples, by country, to give an overview of the assistance requested from the NSRC. In some cases, help is given proactively to remote networks or network developers in order to raise the odds of facilities being available for US scientists when needed. One-on-one correspondence responding to specific questions occurs daily, in addition to the self-help provided by the gopher, WWW, and FTP servers, and responses to general information questions posted on lists such as AFRICANA-L, AFRIK-IT, DEVEL-L, ENREDO, APOPS, etc. Angola - Bush provided advice about router configuration; Bush and Huter gave information about the use of accounting tools to EBONet, the first commercial IP network in Angola. Botswana - Bush provided advice regarding DNS setup and management to the Southern African Development Organisation (SADC). Cameroon - Responding to a request about how to establish a T1 connection to the Cameroon, Bush introduced the organization seeking assistance to the appropriate contacts at MCI, Sprint, PanAmSat, etc. Comoros - Huter and Bush provided information and advice about FidoNet and UUCP technology to an Australian anthropologist working with University of Sydney and the Centre National pour la Documentation et de la Recherche Scientifique. Introduced him to an NSRC colleague in Australia who is currently working with him to establish a UUCP connection in Moroni. Dominican Republic - working with the Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo (INTEC), and the Organization of American States (OAS) to enhance academic/research networking capabilities. Gambia - assisting a FidoNet provider in the Gambia to establish TCP/IP connectivity via PanAmSat. Georgia - Bush is assisting with domain registrations and TLD management issues. Haiti - Huter responded to numerous questions about system administration, training opportunities, and other networking resources from REHRED (Reseau Telematique Haitien pour la Recherche et le Developpement), the primary R&E network in Haiti. We shipped them a set of O'Reilly technical reference books to enhance local staff development. Kenya - Bush provides advice and technical assistance to three different startup ISPs in KE, and has facilitated numerous KE domain registrations. Bush is providing ongoing assistance to the African Regional Center for Computing (ARCC) as they upgrade their link from 19.2kbps to 64kbps satellite connection. He is currently assisting with small DNS disputes among the various providers. It is usually RFC 1591 educational issues. Malawi - provided information and advice to support their effort to move from Fido to TCP/IP. Mauritania - set up a test UUCP connection to a science department at the University of Nouakchott. A permanent link still has not been established. In response to their questions about training opportunities, Huter sent them the application for the INET '97 workshop on Network Technology For Countries in the Early Stages of Internetworking. Morocco - Bush and Huter provided system administration advice to Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, and also sent a shipment of O'Reilly technical books. Bush is also currently mediating a number of domain name disputes. Nigeria - Bush provides ongoing technical advice about UUCP networking and the internals of modem technology to an International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP - Trieste, Italy) project with Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife. Senegal - Bush assisted with TLD management questions. Tanzania - Bush runs the primary server and tries to moderate the usual small DNS disputes. Uganda - the NSRC is hosting http://www.ug/, the UG domain name service and a site for Makerere University. Bush assists the UG domain with DNS questions and administration. Shipping Technical Reference Books to Developing Networks To enhance information provision to developing areas lacking resources, the NSRC proposed to purchase and distribute technical reference books, such as those in the O'Reilly series to send to engineers in need. These valuable self-help resources provide much assistance, particularly in areas where WWW access does not currently exist and it's difficult to obtain detailed technical information. Resources from the current award were used to send book shipments to Morocco and Haiti. Then, responding to a request from Togo for technical reference information in French, Huter established contact with O'Reilly books, as the French translations are not currently available for purchase in the United States. After explaining the purpose of the request, and the NSRC's work, O'Reilly agreed to provide donations of specific titles to send to the Togolese network provider. Discussions continued and O'Reilly extended the offer to include English reference books, and a supply of French books that can be used for future requests from francophone nations. Workshops Bush and Dave Meyer, Director of the Advanced Network Technology Center (ANTC) at the University of Oregon taught a workshop on router configuration at the VI Foro de Redes de America Latina y el Caribe in Santiago in December. They covered basic routing material - IGPs (RIP & OSPF) and EGP (BGP), Autonomous Systems, the Internet Routing Registry, and some tips about DNS. The focus was on practical application, as opposed to theory. Several different configurations covering various topologies were designed by the group of participants. Case Studies Ken Gulick, a UO graduate student, was hired in October to research and write a series of case studies about networks in developing countries - with an emphasis on how TCP/IP networking was successfully established. Case studies/stories currently being researched and written are Belize, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Ghana, and South Africa. Mary Burger and Larry Landweber of the Internet Society (ISOC) have assisted Huter and Gulick with background research by providing documents and reports archived at ISOC from the early INET proceedings - not currently available on-line. Additional Staff at UO Joel Jaeggli, an undergraduate student, was hired in November to join the NSRC team. Joel has worked at the UO Computing Center since January 1994 in various roles. His skills in user support, system administration, and network maintenance provide a useful addition to the NSRC, while the experience for Jaeggli of working on international networking issues is a valuable training experience. As a student aspiring to be a network engineer/architect, he benefits greatly from the mentoring of Meyer and Bush. One noteworthy research project involves assisting Bush and Meyer in their work with Merit about routing stability problems. Jaeggli attended the San Jose IETF in December using NSRC funds. Dave Meyer, Joanne Hugi, Director of University Computing, and other University Computing staff provide pro bono support as needed. Meyer in particular works closely with Bush and Huter to build critical mass and find students who can contribute to the NSRC's work. Thus far, it has been somewhat difficult to find students with strong networking skills as the UO's Department of Computer and Information Science offers minimal coursework in this area, and there are currently no faculty members in the department with any real networking expertise. Gopher/WWW servers Regular maintenance of the country-specific data in the international networking developments database continues, primarily by Huter. An automated update request was sent to all providers in the NSRC database which yielded a considerable amount of fresh data, and pointers to new regional networking contacts and information. The ARIN Proposal Bush helped design and write the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) proposal, which would be established for the purpose of administration and registration of Internet Protocol (IP) numbers to the geographical areas currently managed by Network Solutions (InterNIC). Those areas include, but are not limited to, North America, South America, South Africa and the Caribbean. In conjunction with this effort, the NSRC is also helping Latin America and Africa to develop their own registry services. As a part of fostering this, Bush successfully proposed a candidate from Latin America to be part of the proposed Board of Trustees - Raymundo Vega Aguilar, director of the Computing and Networking Division of the CICESE in Ensenada, Mexico. Bush is a member of the proposed Board of Trustees.