As of May 2024, HamWAN is in the process of migrating our IP address usage off of 44.24.240.0/20 to a larger allocation, 44.25.0.0/16. This migration is a part of the agreement HamWAN made with ARDC for receiving the larger allocation and needs to be completed by Dec 31, 2024. Our infrastructure has been almost entirely migrated over the past few months, and we are currently serving all services from both the old and new addresses. The major item in front of us is the update of clients.
The following changes impact some or all clients configured prior to mid-February or so:
as configured in steps 8, 9, and 10 of our client setup instructions (GET CONNECTED), which we updated back in February and have our new recommended settings. Luckily, none of these settings impact your ability to connect or current connectivity, and they don't require a reboot to take effect. The logging and SNMP setting help us monitor and manage the network, and the NTP client in your devices helps ensure they have the correct time for logging.
In addition, many users have configured DHCP servers on their clients for local LAN connected devices behind their device. If the DHCP server is announcing DNS or NTP servers to the local clients, these will also need to be updated. In this case one other change needs to be taken into consideration.
We recognize that not all clients are online all the time, and HamWAN Netops does not have credentials to all devices, though we encourage it to allow us to keep the network healthy. Our plan for this conversion is as follows:
The following commands issued in a RouterOS terminal window will update your client. Note that Mikrotik updated the command format for NTP client settings between RouterOS 6 and 7, so use the correct command for your version. To find your routeros, look at the banner when you log into the device or type /system resource print. Look for the version field. A version 7 device would be something like: 7.13.3 (stable), a version 6 device would look something like: 6.43.4 (stable).
Common update commands:
/snmp community set [ find name=hamwan ] name=hamwan addresses=44.24.240.0/20,44.25.0.0/16
/system logging action set [find name=remote] remote=44.25.0.8NTP client update if your device is running RouterOS 6.x:
/system ntp client set primary-ntp=44.25.0.4 secondary-ntp=44.25.1.4 enabled=yesNTP client settings if your device is running RouterOS 7.x:
/system ntp client set servers=44.25.0.4,44.25.1.4 enabled=yesAdditionally, if you have configured a DHCP server, you may want to run the following or similar commands:
/ip dhcp-server network set [ find dns-server~"44.24.24" ] dns-server=44.25.0.1,44.25.1.1
/ip dhcp-server network set [ find ntp-server~"44.24.24" ] ntp-server=44.25.0.4,44.25.1.4Nothing catastrophic. You will not be disconnected. You may have trouble reaching other internet sites due to lack of DNS service when we turn off servers on the 44.24.{244,245}.0 networks. Likewise, your device time may drift due to lack of NTP. These issues can be resolved if and when they become an issue for you. We will announce the shutdown of these servers later this year.
Our IRC channel changed some time ago and many devices list the wrong IRC channel for support. You can make this update:
/snmp set contact="IRC #hamwan-support on libera.chat"If you access your device to update it as above, you may also want to consider upgrading RouterOS to a current version to ensure you have all the latest security updates. This is typically done with:
/system package update installwhich reboots the system, followed by:
/system routerboard upgradeand then another system reboot:
/system rebootWe are moving the infrastructure to RouterOS 7.x, but at this time we do not see any need for users to switch from the 6.x release track. If you consider doing this, be sure to read the Mikrotik documentation on upgrading to RouterOS 7. There are some special cases particularly for wireless devices.
HamWAN Netops and other community members are available to help. You can reach us in near real-time on our IRC channel: #hamwan-support on irc.libera.chat. You can also post queries to netops@hamwan.org, or to PSDR@hamwan.org if you believe the question and answer would be of general interest to this community.