The ZTVI Network is the circulatory system of our organization. ZTVINet operates as an international backbone and is a 100% overlay network, meaning, there are almost no physical assets other than the virtual routers and VMs necessary to connect to the physical internet. We currently operate as AS19625 and have been allocated 2602:fc59::/40 and 23.188.240.0/24 in the ARIN region. ZTVI operates as an almost 100% IPv6-only network. We currently only utilize IPv4 for out of band management, NAT64, and occasionally on a PNI with no peering in some locations. Legacy IPv4 exists as an “as a service” overlay (IPv4aaS).

Our current peering locations are:

  • ABQIX; Albuquerque, NM, US
  • ZTVI CU; Champaign, IL, US
  • Hurricane Electric Fremont 2, CA, US

Peering node requirements:

Space for a small linux system (or provided system or VM) capable of ingesting a full IPv6 DFZ. Our network is run primarily on Ubuntu Linux systems using FRR, although we are open to any platform that is able to meet our requirements.

Backbone Node Requirements:

  • Support for IPv6
  • An IPv6 BGP peering (preferably at an IX that has AS6939; HE.net)
  • 1G IPv6 transit (Not required if HE.net is present and available for bi-lateral peering)
  • 100M minimum IPv4 transit
  • Ability to host a 2U hypervisor
  • Ability to host 1U router

Connector (customer) site

Our network is built to operate as a carrier backbone, connect customer edge devices and to provide basics for peering and IPv6 services. We also provide NAT64 and DNS64 services as well as dot/doh DNS recursion at each location.

How is this thing managed?

Right now this network is primarily managed with Ansible. This is a best-effort, experimental endeavor. We don’t want to spend time hand crafting artisanal network elements any more than we already do. Anything that is repeated more than a few times is automated. We use NetBox as a DCM and IPAM.

What ZTVI isn’t:

  • A high throughput broadband service.
  • A public TunnelBroker (use the HE tunnelbroker until you can convince your ISP to provide it natively).
  • A mechanism for streaming outside of your region.
  • A network with no rules.

If you are interested and able to host an egress peering node, or for more information, please email info@ztvi.org