IRC Server On Anycast Network

[bitkocher]

Hello,

is there any experience with operation of an IRC server on an anycast network. Anycast means several autonomous systems originate same /24 PI network from different servers. Result is every user will be connected to nearest server (nearest in BGP4 sense). ircds are connected by e.g. VPN, so there is a small IRC network. My questions:

1. Is there anybody who did that before in EFnet ?
2. Does it make sense to do such experiments ?

cheers
Bitkocher

[munky]

there has actually been much discussion regarding this among EFnet admins. no, it has not been done on EFnet before. i believe dalnet is the largest network to have experimented with anycast.

[bitkocher]

So I would give that a try. If EFnet admins are interested in results, I would share it. Test environment will be used as backend to a distributed webchat system, so load behaviour will be quite different in comparision to a IRC network like EFnet. Maybe backend will be opened to the public to check behaviour in a real IRC network. ircd configs follow EFnet recommendations, which is caused by historical reasons, because that irc servers are running since 2002. In first stage two servers will participate on anycast, interconnection is done by a IPsec VPN which is already running. Network 193.138.96.0/24 will be used for anycast network when RIPE objects are updated and routing is configured - but first a Cisco 6509 has to be moved to new location...

[bitkocher]

Config is not suitable for production environment, this is only a proof of concept. If you like to test, feel free to connect to 193.138.96.9:6667. Due to experiments there is neither IPv6 nor SSL support.

Comments are welcome.