Although RAINet is small, it consists of a full range of users, including engineers, researchers, educators, consultants, and hobbiests. RAINet is explicitly not designed to provide production level services in the fashion of AlterNet, CompuServe, or TymNet. As an experimental network using common phone lines, inexpensive equipment, and run by volunteers with daytime jobs, there will frequently be times when parts of the network are inoperative. RAINet will provide non-commercial connectivity to the Internet research and educational electronic communities, as a number of RAINet's founders are involved in the research with educational and research institutions outside of the Pacific Northwest. RAINet member sites and users are required to take reasonable measures, given the constraints of technology and management, to ensure that traffic using gateways between RAINet and other networks conforms to the guidelines of the other networks.
Ethernet is used within sites to connect hosts.
These IP connected sites have over 70 hosts including work stations, X-terminals, PC's, and routers. Each PC-router has an Ethernet card and two serial ports utilizing 16550AFN UARTs. The other connections are accomplished using either V.32 or V.32bis modems, including Intel and Telebit products. RAINet users are responsible for all the special customizations to the router software. RAINet has one primary DNS server, one secondary server, and several cache-only and resolver systems.