Introduce new Asian directory server

[ann0see]

What is the current behaviour and why should it be changed?

The latency between Asia and Europe is high and it's wasteful to transport data over such a large geographic region. Since we have a considerably large Asian (Thai) community, there should be a Directory in Asia.
https://github.com/orgs/jamulussoftware/discussions/3629

@dtinth already proposed to set up a directory in Thailand. For Jamulus 4, we should introduce it.
Any Genre 3 is not used too much - thus, it likely makes sense to move this directory to Asia.
Any directory owner should be aware of https://github.com/orgs/jamulussoftware/discussions/3629#discussioncomment-16084970 and follow these rules.

Even though .io is not likely to disappear, its future is unclear, we should rather think of using jamulus.app for the new directory (e.g. asia.jamulus.app:22624 or asia.dir.jamulus.app:22624)

CC: @corrados @pljones

Has this feature been discussed and generally agreed?

Yes.

[ann0see]

@dtinth would you be able to set one up? Also @gilgongo could you redirect the anygenre3 server to this new one then?

[ann0see]

Once it is set up, we should rename Any Genre 3 to Any Genre Asia

[gilgongo]

@dtinth Let us know what the new server address is (CNAME or A record).

BTW Cloudflare is replicating all records in jamulus.io to jamulus.app automatically, although I don't know if there's any latency penalty for that, I suppose we could consider switching that around so that if .io went down we'd not have any unexpected downtime.

[ann0see]

I'd put down the TTL and then first set the IPs/Cnames from Jamulus.io on jamulus.app. Then after a few days only set cnames on jamulus.io to jamulus.app. This avoids any loops.

[dtinth]

@gilgongo @ann0see Noted, I will set up the server and get back with the server address. I am in the middle of many other things, but I added it to my todo list.

Looking at the list, I will need to clarify something: The server that I can afford to run long-term (been using this provider since 2021), while it has low latency, the network it lives in can be quite jittery at times. This is not a problem for a directory server use case (providing registration and discovery of other servers) but people in Thailand when jamming may experience more jitter when on the Directory Server.

Personally I think it should be fine because:

• In Thailand, there are nine other servers to choose from.
• Elsewhere, I have observed that jitter smoothes out as distance and latency increases. (I used to connect to my own server through a VPN in Singapore - it added 60ms of latency but reduced jitter).

I would like to confirm if this trade-offs are acceptable and if you have any recommendations.

[gilgongo]

I'd put down the TTL and then first set the IPs/Cnames from Jamulus.io on jamulus.app. Then after a few days only set cnames on jamulus.io to jamulus.app. This avoids any loops.

The TTL is currently 1 day on the anygenre3 record. I can put that down to 1 hour in preparation for the move. As to the .io and .app, all records are simply replicated via proxy on Cloudflare. The .app version doesn't have its own zone file in that sense.

[ann0see]

replicated via proxy on Cloudflare

But only for http I suppose. We should for now only focus on plain old DNS.

[ann0see]

the network it lives in can be quite jittery at times

Do you know why?

It's likely ok and if too many issues show up we can find another solution for sure.

[gilgongo]

replicated via proxy on Cloudflare

But only for http I suppose. We should for now only focus on plain old DNS.

Sure. BTW when I say proxied, it's just the way Cloudflare "mirrors" the zone I think (on a loopback it looks like). The records on .io themselves aren't proxied.