A (hopefully) scalable scheme for linking the consume network using ip-over-ip tunnels

(This is a bit rough now. Don't worry if you don't know what a 'route reflector' is. You really don't need to know).

On each ADSL providers/isps network that have consume nodes we have two machine that act as 'route reflectors'.

Everyone using that providers network then connects to those two 'route reflectors' (and they connect to each other).

All the route reflectors then connect to each other.

(we might instead want the route reflectors to connect to a small number of even more centralized machines, (I'm not sure how well the first version will scale)).

Here's a diagram I prepared earlier:

The route reflectors should ideally be machines that:

• Are run by people that know what they are doing (so they can help others).
• Have wireless connections into the wireless consume net so as to minimize the number of tunneled hops
• Have good, high speed Internet connections
• Are fairly reliable. (not much down-time, UPS's are good).

As far as i know we don't have any machines with the properties listed above. I'm happy to take the plunge and offer two of mine as suitable victims.

Hint: if you come close to fitting the above description then you need to mail me pronto.

TODO: add a flag people can set in the db to become route reflectors.