blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</div>
  24       <div class="date">21st October 2013</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
  26 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
  27 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
  28 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
  29 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
  30 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
  31 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
  32 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
  33
  34 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
  35 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
  36 instead, I started playing with a
  37 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
  38 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
  39 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
  40 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
  41 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
  42 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
  43 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
  44 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
  45 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
  46 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
  47 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
  48 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
  49 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
  50 every client on the local network.</p>
  51
  52 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
  53 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
  54 and a script
  55 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
  56 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
  57 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
  58 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
  59 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
  60 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
  61 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
  62 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
  63 support.</p>
  64
  65 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
  66 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
  67
  68 <p><pre>
  69 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
  70     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
  71 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
  72 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
  73 %
  74 </pre></p>
  75
  76 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
  77 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
  78 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
  79 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
  80 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
  81 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
  82
  83 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
  84 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
  85 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
  86
  87 <p><table>
  88
  89 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
  90 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
  91 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
  92 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
  93 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
  94 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
  95
  96 </table></p>
  97
  98 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
  99 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
 100 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
 101 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
 102 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
 103 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
 104 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
 105 </div>
 106
 107       <div class="tags">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>.</div>
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