1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Sun,
10 Nov
2013 23:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
15 use TP-Link
3040 and
3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
16 bought arrived on Friday. Here are my notes on how to set up the
17 MR3040 as a mesh node using
18 <a href=
"http://www.openwrt.org/
">OpenWrt
</a
>.
</p
>
20 <p
>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
21 <a href=
"http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040
">TL-MR3040
</a
>,
23 <a href=
"http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin
">the
24 recommended firmware image
</a
>
25 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
26 uploaded it into the original web interface. The flashing went fine,
27 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port. After
28 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
29 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.
</p
>
31 <p
>I started off by reading the instructions from
32 <a href=
"http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine
's_Research
">Wireless
33 Africa
</a
>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
34 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
35 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config
">using
36 batman-adv on OpenWrt
</a
>. A small snag was the fact that the
37 <tt
>opkg install kmod-batman-adv
</tt
> command did not work as it
38 should. The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
39 dependency crc16 was not already loaded. I
40 <a href=
"https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/
14452">reported the bug
</a
> to
41 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon. But the problem
42 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
43 seem to work when booting from scratch.
</p
>
45 <p
>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/. I did not bridge
46 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
47 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
48 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
51 <p
><tt
>/etc/config/network
</tt
></p
>
55 config interface
'loopback
'
56 option ifname
'lo
'
57 option proto
'static
'
58 option ipaddr
'127.0.0.1'
59 option netmask
'255.0.0.0'
61 config globals
'globals
'
62 option ula_prefix
'fdbf:
4c12:
3fed::/
48'
64 config interface
'lan
'
65 option ifname
'eth0
'
66 option type
'bridge
'
67 option proto
'dhcp
'
68 option ipaddr
'192.168.1.1'
69 option netmask
'255.255.255.0'
70 option hostname
'tl-mr3040
'
71 option ip6assign
'60'
73 config interface
'mesh
'
74 option ifname
'adhoc0
'
75 option mtu
'1528'
76 option proto
'batadv
'
77 option mesh
'bat0
'
80 <p
><tt
>/etc/config/wireless
</tt
></p
>
83 config wifi-device
'radio0
'
84 option type
'mac80211
'
85 option channel
'11'
86 option hwmode
'11ng
'
87 option path
'platform/ar933x_wmac
'
88 option htmode
'HT20
'
89 list ht_capab
'SHORT-GI-
20'
90 list ht_capab
'SHORT-GI-
40'
91 list ht_capab
'RX-STBC1
'
92 list ht_capab
'DSSS_CCK-
40'
93 option disabled
'0'
95 config wifi-iface
'wmesh
'
96 option device
'radio0
'
97 option ifname
'adhoc0
'
98 option network
'mesh
'
99 option encryption
'none
'
100 option mode
'adhoc
'
101 option bssid
'02:BA:
00:
00:
00:
01'
102 option ssid
'meshfx@hackeriet
'
104 <p
><tt
>/etc/config/batman-adv
</tt
></p
>
107 config
'mesh
' 'bat0
'
108 option interfaces
'adhoc0
'
109 option
'aggregated_ogms
'
110 option
'ap_isolation
'
111 option
'bonding
'
112 option
'fragmentation
'
113 option
'gw_bandwidth
'
114 option
'gw_mode
'
115 option
'gw_sel_class
'
116 option
'log_level
'
117 option
'orig_interval
'
118 option
'vis_mode
'
119 option
'bridge_loop_avoidance
'
120 option
'distributed_arp_table
'
121 option
'network_coding
'
122 option
'hop_penalty
'
124 # yet another batX instance
125 # config
'mesh
' 'bat5
'
126 # option
'interfaces
' 'second_mesh
'
129 <p
>The mesh node is now operational. I have yet to test its range,
130 but I hope it is good. I have not yet tested the TP-Link
3600 box
131 still wrapped up in plastic.
</p
>
136 <title>Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog
</title>
137 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html
</link>
138 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html
</guid>
139 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Nov
2013 22:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
140 <description><p
>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
141 <a href=
"http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=
147">to get rid of huge
142 init.d scripts
</a
>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
143 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
144 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:
</p
>
147 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
150 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
151 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
152 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
153 # Default-Start:
2 3 4 5
154 # Default-Stop:
0 1 6
155 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
156 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
157 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
158 # used as a drop-in replacement.
160 DESC=
"enhanced syslogd
"
161 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
162 </pre
></p
>
164 <p
>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
165 script was
137 lines, and the above is just
15 lines, most of it meta
166 info/comments.
</p
>
168 <p
>How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
169 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
174 # Define LSB log_* functions.
175 # Depend on lsb-base (
>=
3.2-
14) to ensure that this file is present
176 # and status_of_proc is working.
177 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
180 # Function that starts the daemon/service
186 #
0 if daemon has been started
187 #
1 if daemon was already running
188 #
2 if daemon could not be started
189 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test
> /dev/null \
191 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
194 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
195 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
196 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
200 # Function that stops the daemon/service
205 #
0 if daemon has been stopped
206 #
1 if daemon was already stopped
207 #
2 if daemon could not be stopped
208 # other if a failure occurred
209 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/
30/KILL/
5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
210 RETVAL=
"$?
"
211 [
"$RETVAL
" =
2 ]
&& return
2
212 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
213 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
214 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
215 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
216 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
217 # sleep for some time.
218 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=
0/
30/KILL/
5 --exec $DAEMON
219 [
"$?
" =
2 ]
&& return
2
220 # Many daemons don
't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
222 return
"$RETVAL
"
226 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
230 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
231 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
232 # then implement that here.
234 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal
1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
239 scriptbasename=
"$(basename $
1)
"
240 echo
"SN: $scriptbasename
"
241 if [
"$scriptbasename
" !=
"init-d-library
" ] ; then
242 script=
"$
1"
249 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
250 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
252 # Exit if the package is not installed
253 #[ -x
"$DAEMON
" ] || exit
0
255 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
256 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ]
&& . /etc/default/$NAME
258 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
261 case
"$
1" in
263 [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_daemon_msg
"Starting $DESC
" "$NAME
"
265 case
"$?
" in
266 0|
1) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
0 ;;
267 2) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
1 ;;
271 [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_daemon_msg
"Stopping $DESC
" "$NAME
"
273 case
"$?
" in
274 0|
1) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
0 ;;
275 2) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
1 ;;
279 status_of_proc
"$DAEMON
" "$NAME
" && exit
0 || exit $?
281 #reload|force-reload)
283 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
284 # and leave
'force-reload
' as an alias for
'restart
'.
286 #log_daemon_msg
"Reloading $DESC
" "$NAME
"
290 restart|force-reload)
292 # If the
"reload
" option is implemented then remove the
293 #
'force-reload
' alias
295 log_daemon_msg
"Restarting $DESC
" "$NAME
"
297 case
"$?
" in
300 case
"$?
" in
302 1) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Old process is still running
303 *) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Failed to start
313 echo
"Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}
" >&2
319 </pre
></p
>
321 <p
>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
322 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
323 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
324 optimize it nor make it more robust either.
</p
>
326 <p
>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
327 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
328 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
329 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
330 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.
</p
>
335 <title>Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian
</title>
336 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html
</link>
337 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html
</guid>
338 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Nov
2013 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
339 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/
">The SPICE protocol
</a
> for
340 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
341 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
342 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
343 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
668284">request
344 for a package
</a
> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
345 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
346 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
347 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
348 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
349 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
350 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p
>
352 <p
>The source is now available from
353 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary
">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary
</a
>.
</p
>
358 <title>Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images
</title>
359 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html
</link>
360 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html
</guid>
361 <pubDate>Sun,
27 Oct
2013 17:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
362 <description><p
>The
363 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html
">vmdebootstrap
</a
>
364 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
365 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
366 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
367 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
368 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi
">Raspberry Pi
</a
>, as part
369 of a plan to simplify the build system for
370 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the FreedomBox
371 project
</a
>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
372 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
373 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
374 Raspberry Pi.
</p
>
376 <p
>Armed with the knowledge on how to build
"foreign
" (aka non-native
377 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
378 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
379 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
380 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
381 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
">Debian
382 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a
>. First, the
383 <tt
>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt
> option tell vmdebootstrap to
384 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
385 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
386 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
387 two new options
<tt
>--bootsize size
</tt
> and
<tt
>--boottype
388 fstype
</tt
> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
389 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
390 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt
>--variant
391 variant
</tt
> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
392 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
393 <tt
>--no-extlinux
</tt
> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
394 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
395 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
396 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
398 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/
">the
399 upstream project page
</a
>.
</p
>
401 <p
>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
402 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
403 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
408 set -e # Exit on first error
409 rootdir=
"$
1"
410 cd
"$rootdir
"
411 cat
&lt;
&lt;EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
412 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
414 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
415 # install a kernel somewhere too.
416 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
417 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
418 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
419 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
420 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
421 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
422 </pre
></p
>
424 <p
>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
425 to build the image:
</p
>
428 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
431 --distribution jessie \
432 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
441 --root-password raspberry \
442 --hostname raspberrypi \
443 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
444 --customize `pwd`/customize \
448 --package ca-certificates \
451 </pre
></p
>
453 <p
>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
454 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
455 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
456 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
457 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
458 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
459 using a non-free binary blob.
</p
>
461 <p
>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
462 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
463 build dependency list.
</p
>
465 <p
>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
466 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
467 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
468 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/
">Raspbian
</a
> based images.
</p
>
473 <title>Det er jo makta som er mest sårbar ved massiv overvåkning av Internett
</title>
474 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html
</link>
475 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html
</guid>
476 <pubDate>Sat,
26 Oct
2013 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
477 <description><p
>De siste måneders eksponering av
478 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/Her-er-Edvard-Snowdens-mest-omtalte-avsloringer-
7351734.html
">den
479 totale overvåkningen som foregår i den vestlige verden dokumenterer
480 hvor sårbare vi er
</a
>. Men det slår meg at de som er mest sårbare
481 for dette, myndighetspersoner på alle nivåer, neppe har innsett at de
482 selv er de mest interessante personene å lage profiler på, for å kunne
483 påvirke dem.
</p
>
485 <p
>For å ta et lite eksempel: Stortingets nettsted,
486 <a href=
"http://www.stortinget.no/
">www.stortinget.no
</a
> (og
488 <a href=
"http://data.stortinget.no/
">data.stortinget.no
</a
>),
489 inneholder informasjon om det som foregår på Stortinget, og jeg antar
490 de største brukerne av informasjonen der er representanter og
491 rådgivere på Stortinget. Intet overraskende med det. Det som derimot
492 er mer skjult er at Stortingets nettsted bruker
493 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics
">Google
494 Analytics
</a
>, hvilket gjør at enhver som besøker nettsidene der også
495 rapporterer om besøket via Internett-linjer som passerer Sverige,
496 England og videre til USA. Det betyr at informasjon om ethvert besøk
497 på stortingets nettsider kan snappes opp av svensk, britisk og USAs
498 etterretningsvesen. De kan dermed holde et øye med hvilke
499 Stortingssaker stortingsrepresentantene synes er interessante å sjekke
500 ut, og hvilke sider rådgivere og andre på stortinget synes er
501 interessant å besøke, når de gjør det og hvilke andre representanter
502 som sjekker de samme sidene omtrent samtidig. Stortingets bruk av
503 Google Analytics gjør det dermed enkelt for utenlands etteretning å
504 spore representantenes aktivitet og interesse. Hvis noen av
505 representantene bruker Google Mail eller noen andre tjenestene som
506 krever innlogging, så vil det være enda enklere å finne ut nøyaktig
507 hvilke personer som bruker hvilke nettlesere og dermed knytte
508 informasjonen opp til enkeltpersoner på Stortinget.
</p
>
510 <p
>Og jo flere nettsteder som bruker Google Analytics, jo bedre
511 oversikt over stortingsrepresentantenes lesevaner og interesse blir
512 tilgjengelig for svensk, britisk og USAs etterretning. Hva de kan
513 bruke den informasjonen til overlater jeg til leseren å undres
519 <title>A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node
</title>
520 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
</link>
521 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
</guid>
522 <pubDate>Mon,
21 Oct
2013 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
523 <description><p
>The last few days I have been experimenting with
524 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki
">the
525 batman-adv mesh technology
</a
>. I want to gain some experience to see
526 if it will fit
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the
527 Freedombox project
</a
>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
528 mesh network around the park where I live. Batman-adv is a layer
2
529 mesh system (
"ethernet
" in other words), where the mesh network appear
530 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.
</p
>
532 <p
>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
533 around, but I
've been unable to get them working with batman-adv. So
534 instead, I started playing with a
535 <a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org/
">Raspberry Pi
</a
>, and tried to
536 get it working as a mesh node. My idea is to use it to create a mesh
537 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
538 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
539 network. This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
540 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
541 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh. This in turn is useful for
542 Android phones using
<a href=
"http://servalproject.org/
">the Serval
543 Project
</a
> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
544 phone and message each other for free. The reason is that Android
545 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
546 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted. But if
547 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
548 every client on the local network.
</p
>
550 <p
>To get this working, I
've created a debian package
551 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node
">meshfx-node
</a
>
553 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
">build-rpi-mesh-node
</a
>
554 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image. I
'm using Debian Jessie (and
555 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
556 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
557 image to get it booting, but I
'll ignore that for now. Also, as
558 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
559 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit. I hope
560 the routing performance isn
't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
563 <p
>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
564 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:
</p
>
567 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
568 https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
569 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node
> build.log
2>&1
570 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=
1M
572 </pre
></p
>
574 <p
>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
575 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node. At least it does for
576 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
577 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
578 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
">an
579 earlier blog post about this mesh testing
</a
>.
</p
>
581 <p
>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either. I bought
582 everything over the counter in shops nearby. If I had ordered online
583 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:
</p
>
585 <p
><table
>
587 <tr
><th
>Supplier
</th
><th
>Model
</th
><th
>NOK
</th
></tr
>
588 <tr
><td
>Teknikkmagasinet
</td
><td
>Raspberry Pi model B
</td
><td
>349.90</td
></tr
>
589 <tr
><td
>Teknikkmagasinet
</td
><td
>Raspberry Pi type B case
</td
><td
>99.90</td
></tr
>
590 <tr
><td
>Lefdal
</td
><td
>Jensen Air:Link
25150</td
><td
>295.-
</td
></tr
>
591 <tr
><td
>Clas Ohlson
</td
><td
>Kingston
16 GB SD card
</td
><td
>199.-
</td
></tr
>
592 <tr
><td
>Total cost
</td
><td
></td
><td
>943.80</td
></tr
>
594 </table
></p
>
596 <p
>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
597 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the
1th
598 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
599 play-node I use to develop the image building script. And some times
600 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it. I look forward
601 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
602 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)
</p
>
607 <title>Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github
</title>
608 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html
</link>
609 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html
</guid>
610 <pubDate>Sat,
19 Oct
2013 10:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
611 <description><p
>Back in
2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
612 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee
">the Spykee robot
</a
>
613 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
614 web page. Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
615 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github. If
616 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
617 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl
">the
618 libspykee-perl github repository
</a
>.
</p
>
623 <title>Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway
</title>
624 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</link>
625 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</guid>
626 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Oct
2013 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
627 <description><p
>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
628 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
631 <p
>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/
2013/
18/
">Debian
632 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a
> I came across the Outreach Program for
633 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
634 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
635 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013
">any donation done to Debian
636 earmarked
</a
> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
637 hope you will to. :)
</p
>
639 <p
>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
640 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos
">video
641 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a
> on every Internet user that
642 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I
've already
643 donated. Are you next?
</p
>
645 <p
>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
646 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
647 statement under the heading
648 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/
">Bloggers United for Open
649 Access
</a
> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
650 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
656 <title>Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania
</title>
657 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
</link>
658 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
</guid>
659 <pubDate>Fri,
11 Oct
2013 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
660 <description><p
>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
661 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
662 areas, depending on the radio technology used. Normal wifi equipment
663 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
664 successful examples like
665 <a href=
"http://www.freifunk.net/
">Freifunk
</a
> and
666 <a href=
"http://www.awmn.net/
">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network
</a
>
668 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece
">wikipedia
669 for a large list
</a
>) around the globe. To give you an idea how it
670 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
671 can be seen from their
672 <a href=
"http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html
">dynamically
673 updated node graph and map
</a
>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
674 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
675 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
676 and that is the main topic of this blog post.
</p
>
678 <p
>I
've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
679 to do it as part of my involvement with the
<a
680 href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">NUUG member organisation
</a
> community, and
681 my recent involvement in
682 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the Freedombox project
</a
>
683 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
684 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
685 when possible, given that most communication between people are
686 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
687 communication patterns). It also allow people to communicate without
688 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
689 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
690 important over the years.
</p
>
692 <p
>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
693 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
694 <a href=
"http://hackeriet.no/
">Hackeriet
</a
> at Husmania. They seem to
695 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
696 <a href=
"http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
">the Oslo
697 Freifunk project
</a
>, but that effort is now dead and the people
698 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
699 <a href=
"http://meshfx.org/trac
">meshfx
</a
>. Unfortunately the wiki
700 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
701 reflect this fact, so the old project page can
't be updated to point to
702 the new project. A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
703 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks. I
704 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
705 speakers about this talk (from
706 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY
">youtube
</a
>):
</p
>
708 <p
><iframe width=
"420" height=
"315" src=
"https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
></p
>
710 <p
>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
711 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
712 figure out which one would be
"best
" for some definitions of best, but
713 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
714 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
715 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
716 batman-adv for now. It sure help me to know that the very cool
717 <a href=
"http://www.servalproject.org/
">Serval project in Australia
</a
>
718 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
719 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
720 less industrialized communities. Check out this cool video presenting
722 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
30qNfzJCQOA
">youtube
</a
>):
</p
>
724 <p
><iframe width=
"560" height=
"315" src=
"https://www.youtube.com/embed/
30qNfzJCQOA
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
></p
>
726 <p
>According to the wikipedia page on
727 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network
">Wireless
728 mesh network
</a
> there are around
70 competing schemes for routing
729 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
730 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
731 based community mesh networks.
</p
>
733 <p
>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer
2
734 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
735 network. One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
736 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
737 computer. The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
738 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up. A
739 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide
">good
740 introduction
</a
> is available from the Open Mesh project. These are
741 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:
</p
>
743 <p
><table
>
744 <tr
><th
>Setting
</th
><th
>Value
</th
></tr
>
745 <tr
><td
>Protocol / kernel module
</td
><td
>batman-adv
</td
></tr
>
746 <tr
><td
>ESSID
</td
><td
>meshfx@hackeriet
</td
></tr
>
747 <td
>Channel / Frequency
</td
><td
>11 /
2462</td
></tr
>
748 <td
>Cell ID
</td
><td
>02:BA:
00:
00:
00:
01</td
>
749 </table
></p
>
751 <p
>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
752 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers. (See a nice post from
754 "<a href=
"http://tiebing.blogspot.no/
2009/
12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html
">Information
755 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!
</a
>
756 for details.) When these settings are activated and you have some
757 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
758 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
759 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)
</p
>
761 <p
>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
762 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
763 firmware supporting batman-adv. If anyone know how to use that old
764 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.
</p
>
766 <p
>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
767 us on IRC, either channel
768 <a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace
">#oslohackerspace
</a
>
769 or
<a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug
">#nuug
</a
> on
770 irc.freenode.net.
</p
>
772 <p
>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
773 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
774 and Innovation called
775 <a href=
"http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-
2008.pdf
">The
776 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks
</a
> and elsewhere
777 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
778 Grünerløkka in Oslo. So mesh networks are also interesting for
779 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
780 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
781 know have closed down the experiment. Perhaps Telenor or others would
782 be interested in a cooperation?
</p
>
784 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
10-
12</strong
>: I was just
785 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/
2013-October/
005900.html
">told
786 by the Serval project developers
</a
> that they no longer use
787 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
788 mesh system.
</p
>
793 <title>Skolelinux / Debian Edu
7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador
</title>
794 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html
</link>
795 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html
</guid>
796 <pubDate>Tue,
8 Oct
2013 17:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
797 <description><p
>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
798 Salvador had published a
799 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc
">video on
800 Youtube
</a
> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
801 Skolelinux profile. This is the profile intended for use at home or
802 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
803 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
804 in other word a single user machine). The result is
11 minutes long,
805 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
806 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
807 showing the
<a href=
"http://www.zygotebody.com/
">Zygote Body
3D model
808 of the human body
</a
>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
809 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
810 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
811 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
812 computers without hard drives by installing one central
813 <a href=
"http://www.ltsp.org/
">LTSP server
</a
>.
</p
>
815 <p
>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:
</p
>
817 <iframe width=
"420" height=
"315" src=
"http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
>
819 <p
>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux? Please let
820 me know. :)
</p
>