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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "mesh network".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         13th November 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
  32 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
  33 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
  34 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
  35 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
  36 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
  37 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
  38 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
  39 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
  40 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
  41 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
  42 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
  43 right away. :)</p>
  44
  45       </div>
  46       <div class="tags">
  47
  48
  49         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
  50
  51
  52       </div>
  53     </div>
  54     <div class="padding"></div>
  55
  56     <div class="entry">
  57       <div class="title">
  58         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
  59       </div>
  60       <div class="date">
  61         10th November 2013
  62       </div>
  63       <div class="body">
  64         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
  65 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
  66 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
  67 MR3040 as a mesh node using
  68 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
  69
  70 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
  71 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
  72 and downloaded
  73 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
  74 recommended firmware image</a>
  75 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
  76 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
  77 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
  78 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
  79 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
  80
  81 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
  82 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
  83 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
  84 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
  85 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
  86 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
  87 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
  88 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
  89 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
  90 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
  91 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
  92 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
  93 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
  94
  95 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
  96 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
  97 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
  98 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
  99 them:</p>
 100
 101 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
 102
 103 <pre>
 104
 105 config interface 'loopback'
 106         option ifname 'lo'
 107         option proto 'static'
 108         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
 109         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
 110
 111 config globals 'globals'
 112         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
 113
 114 config interface 'lan'
 115         option ifname 'eth0'
 116         option type 'bridge'
 117         option proto 'dhcp'
 118         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
 119         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
 120         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
 121         option ip6assign '60'
 122
 123 config interface 'mesh'
 124         option ifname 'adhoc0'
 125         option mtu '1528'
 126         option proto 'batadv'
 127         option mesh 'bat0'
 128 </pre>
 129
 130 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
 131 <pre>
 132
 133 config wifi-device 'radio0'
 134         option type 'mac80211'
 135         option channel '11'
 136         option hwmode '11ng'
 137         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
 138         option htmode 'HT20'
 139         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
 140         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
 141         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
 142         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
 143         option disabled '0'
 144
 145 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
 146         option device 'radio0'
 147         option ifname 'adhoc0'
 148         option network 'mesh'
 149         option encryption 'none'
 150         option mode 'adhoc'
 151         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
 152         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
 153 </pre>
 154 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
 155 <pre>
 156
 157 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
 158         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
 159         option 'aggregated_ogms'
 160         option 'ap_isolation'
 161         option 'bonding'
 162         option 'fragmentation'
 163         option 'gw_bandwidth'
 164         option 'gw_mode'
 165         option 'gw_sel_class'
 166         option 'log_level'
 167         option 'orig_interval'
 168         option 'vis_mode'
 169         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
 170         option 'distributed_arp_table'
 171         option 'network_coding'
 172         option 'hop_penalty'
 173
 174 # yet another batX instance
 175 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
 176 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
 177 </pre>
 178
 179 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
 180 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
 181 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
 182
 183       </div>
 184       <div class="tags">
 185
 186
 187         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 188
 189
 190       </div>
 191     </div>
 192     <div class="padding"></div>
 193
 194     <div class="entry">
 195       <div class="title">
 196         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
 197       </div>
 198       <div class="date">
 199         27th October 2013
 200       </div>
 201       <div class="body">
 202         <p>The
 203 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
 204 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
 205 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
 206 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
 207 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
 208 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
 209 of a plan to simplify the build system for
 210 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
 211 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
 212 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
 213 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
 214 Raspberry Pi.</p>
 215
 216 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
 217 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
 218 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
 219 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
 220 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
 221 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
 222 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
 223 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
 224 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
 225 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
 226 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
 227 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
 228 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
 229 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
 230 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
 231 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
 232 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
 233 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
 234 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
 235 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
 236 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
 237 available from
 238 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
 239 upstream project page</a>.</p>
 240
 241 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
 242 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
 243 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
 244 list:</p>
 245
 246 <p><pre>
 247 #!/bin/sh
 248 set -e # Exit on first error
 249 rootdir="$1"
 250 cd "$rootdir"
 251 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
 252 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
 253 EOF
 254 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
 255 # install a kernel somewhere too.
 256 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
 257     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 258 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 259 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
 260 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
 261 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
 262 </pre></p>
 263
 264 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
 265 to build the image:</p>
 266
 267 <pre>
 268 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
 269     --variant minbase \
 270     --arch armel \
 271     --distribution jessie \
 272     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 273     --image test.img \
 274     --size 600M \
 275     --bootsize 64M \
 276     --boottype vfat \
 277     --log-level debug \
 278     --verbose \
 279     --no-kernel \
 280     --no-extlinux \
 281     --root-password raspberry \
 282     --hostname raspberrypi \
 283     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 284     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 285     --package netbase \
 286     --package git-core \
 287     --package binutils \
 288     --package ca-certificates \
 289     --package wget \
 290     --package kmod
 291 </pre></p>
 292
 293 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 294 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 295 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 296 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 297 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 298 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 299 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 300
 301 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 302 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 303 build dependency list.</p>
 304
 305 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 306 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 307 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 308 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 309
 310       </div>
 311       <div class="tags">
 312
 313
 314         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
 315
 316
 317       </div>
 318     </div>
 319     <div class="padding"></div>
 320
 321     <div class="entry">
 322       <div class="title">
 323         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
 324       </div>
 325       <div class="date">
 326         21st October 2013
 327       </div>
 328       <div class="body">
 329         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
 330 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
 331 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
 332 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
 333 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
 334 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
 335 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
 336 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
 337
 338 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
 339 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
 340 instead, I started playing with a
 341 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
 342 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
 343 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
 344 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
 345 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
 346 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
 347 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
 348 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
 349 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
 350 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
 351 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
 352 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
 353 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
 354 every client on the local network.</p>
 355
 356 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
 357 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
 358 and a script
 359 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
 360 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
 361 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
 362 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
 363 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
 364 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
 365 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
 366 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
 367 support.</p>
 368
 369 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
 370 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
 371
 372 <p><pre>
 373 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
 374     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
 375 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
 376 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
 377 %
 378 </pre></p>
 379
 380 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
 381 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
 382 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
 383 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
 384 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
 385 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
 386
 387 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
 388 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
 389 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
 390
 391 <p><table>
 392
 393 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
 394 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
 395 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
 396 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
 397 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
 398 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
 399
 400 </table></p>
 401
 402 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
 403 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
 404 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
 405 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
 406 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
 407 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
 408 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
 409
 410       </div>
 411       <div class="tags">
 412
 413
 414         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 415
 416
 417       </div>
 418     </div>
 419     <div class="padding"></div>
 420
 421     <div class="entry">
 422       <div class="title">
 423         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
 424       </div>
 425       <div class="date">
 426         11th October 2013
 427       </div>
 428       <div class="body">
 429         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
 430 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
 431 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
 432 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
 433 successful examples like
 434 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
 435 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
 436 (see
 437 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
 438 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
 439 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
 440 can be seen from their
 441 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
 442 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
 443 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
 444 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
 445 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
 446
 447 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
 448 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
 449 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
 450 my recent involvement in
 451 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
 452 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
 453 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
 454 when possible, given that most communication between people are
 455 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
 456 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
 457 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
 458 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
 459 important over the years.</p>
 460
 461 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
 462 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
 463 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
 464 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
 465 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
 466 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
 467 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
 468 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
 469 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
 470 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
 471 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
 472 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
 473 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
 474 speakers about this talk (from
 475 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
 476
 477 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 478
 479 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
 480 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
 481 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
 482 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
 483 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
 484 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
 485 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
 486 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
 487 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
 488 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
 489 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
 490 that project (from
 491 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
 492
 493 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 494
 495 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
 496 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
 497 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
 498 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
 499 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
 500 based community mesh networks.</p>
 501
 502 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
 503 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
 504 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
 505 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
 506 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
 507 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
 508 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
 509 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
 510 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
 511
 512 <p><table>
 513 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
 514 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
 515 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
 516 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
 517 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
 518 </table></p>
 519
 520 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
 521 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
 522 VillageTelco about
 523 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
 524 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
 525 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
 526 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
 527 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
 528 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
 529
 530 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
 531 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
 532 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
 533 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
 534
 535 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
 536 us on IRC, either channel
 537 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
 538 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
 539 irc.freenode.net.</p>
 540
 541 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
 542 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
 543 and Innovation called
 544 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
 545 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
 546 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
 547 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
 548 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
 549 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
 550 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
 551 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
 552
 553 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
 554 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
 555 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
 556 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
 557 mesh system.</p>
 558
 559       </div>
 560       <div class="tags">
 561
 562
 563         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 564
 565
 566       </div>
 567     </div>
 568     <div class="padding"></div>
 569
 570     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="mesh network.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
 571     <div id="sidebar">
 572
 573
 574
 575 <h2>Archive</h2>
 576 <ul>
 577
 578 <li>2013
 579 <ul>
 580
 581 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 582
 583 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 584
 585 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
 586
 587 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
 588
 589 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 590
 591 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 592
 593 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 594
 595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 596
 597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 598
 599 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
 600
 601 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (6)</a></li>
 602
 603 </ul></li>
 604
 605 <li>2012
 606 <ul>
 607
 608 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 609
 610 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 611
 612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 613
 614 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 615
 616 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
 617
 618 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
 619
 620 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 621
 622 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 623
 624 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
 625
 626 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
 627
 628 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
 629
 630 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 631
 632 </ul></li>
 633
 634 <li>2011
 635 <ul>
 636
 637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 638
 639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 640
 641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 642
 643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 644
 645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 646
 647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 648
 649 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 650
 651 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 652
 653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 654
 655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 656
 657 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 658
 659 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 660
 661 </ul></li>
 662
 663 <li>2010
 664 <ul>
 665
 666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 667
 668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 669
 670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 671
 672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 673
 674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 675
 676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 677
 678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 679
 680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 681
 682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 683
 684 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 685
 686 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 687
 688 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 689
 690 </ul></li>
 691
 692 <li>2009
 693 <ul>
 694
 695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 696
 697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 698
 699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 700
 701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 702
 703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 704
 705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 706
 707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 708
 709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 710
 711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 712
 713 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 714
 715 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 716
 717 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 718
 719 </ul></li>
 720
 721 <li>2008
 722 <ul>
 723
 724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 725
 726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 727
 728 </ul></li>
 729
 730 </ul>
 731
 732
 733
 734 <h2>Tags</h2>
 735 <ul>
 736
 737  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 738
 739  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 740
 741  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 742
 743  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
 744
 745  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
 746
 747  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (13)</a></li>
 748
 749  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 750
 751  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (90)</a></li>
 752
 753  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
 754
 755  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
 756
 757  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
 758
 759  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
 760
 761  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (228)</a></li>
 762
 763  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
 764
 765  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 766
 767  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
 768
 769  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
 770
 771  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
 772
 773  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
 774
 775  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
 776
 777  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
 778
 779  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 780
 781  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
 782
 783  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 784
 785  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (5)</a></li>
 786
 787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
 788
 789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (237)</a></li>
 790
 791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (159)</a></li>
 792
 793  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (9)</a></li>
 794
 795  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 796
 797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
 798
 799  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (67)</a></li>
 800
 801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 802
 803  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 804
 805  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 806
 807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
 808
 809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 810
 811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 812
 813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
 814
 815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (33)</a></li>
 816
 817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 818
 819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
 820
 821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
 822
 823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
 824
 825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
 826
 827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (21)</a></li>
 828
 829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
 830
 831  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
 832
 833  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
 834
 835  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 836
 837  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
 838
 839 </ul>
 840
 841
 842     </div>
 843     <p style="text-align: right">
 844  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
 845 </p>
 846
 847   </body>
 848 </html>