I saw a map of undersea internet cables the other day and it’s crazy how many branches there are. It got me wondering - if I’m (based in the UK) playing an online game from someone in Japan for example, how is the route worked out? Does my ISP know that to get to place X, the data has to be routed via cable 1, cable 2 etc. but to get to place Z it needs to go via cable 3, 4?
basically, the entire TL;DR of this post, from someone who is a linux nerd, that knows some things about networking.
Everything knows where everything is, and if it doesn’t it knows something else that does, and if that doesnt, well, repeat adnauseam. The technicality here is that not every individual point knows where every other individual point is, but it knows it’s immediate neighbors. And those immediate neighbors do as well, at the high routing level, think data center.
Think of it like a tree structure, but a really fucking big one, and with a lot of circular and unusual connection points. You can get from one point, to any other point. It’s just a matter of knowing how.
Also, to be pedantically accurate here, the internet is a hodge podge of packet flinging hardware, “routes” aren’t really a thing. Packets will take whatever route is determined to be optimal by the hardware it interacts with. I.E. it dynamically changes as needed, that’s why your ping is always variable
Thanks, this is a good summary. It’s useful to know about the dynamically changing route - that explains a lot.
nice root federated instance btw
Root federated?
we’re on lemmy which is a federated service, essentially the tl;dr is decentralized. Root federation in this context refers to the instance that hosts your account. In my case dbzer0, in your case pawb.
Personally i’ve found it really interesting seeing the sub niche interactions between different federated platforms. It’s a weird look into how humans tend to associate.
Ah gotcha! Yeah it’s pretty neat seeing the ways in which the instances intermingle. Some communities stay pretty niche and used only by local users with the same interests, whereas others are melting pots of every instance. I guess it’s a bit like a society with little towns and bigger cities.
yeah, it’s interesting to see in comments and other communities as well.
The vast majority of accounts seem to be on lemmy world though. Which is interesting.