From: Petter Reinholdtsen Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 11:56:52 +0000 (+0000) Subject: New post. X-Git-Url: https://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/commitdiff_plain/4b5656d7ad51af87fb9a8ef51cd5d34d5c551029?ds=sidebyside New post. --- diff --git a/blog/draft/2013-mesh-network-oslo.txt b/blog/draft/2013-mesh-network-oslo.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0d0a9f8887 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/draft/2013-mesh-network-oslo.txt @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +Title: Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania +Tags: english, nuug +Date: 2013-10-11 17:10 + +

Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing +networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large +areas, depending on the radio technology used. Normal wifi equipment +can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several +successful examples like +Freifunk and +Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network +(see +wikipedia +for a large list) around the globe. A nice overview of the Kiel +Freifunk community can be seen from their +dynamically +updated node graph and map, where one can see how the mesh notes +automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing. +There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway, +and that is the main topic of this blog post.

+ +

I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now within the +NUUG member organisation community, +but my recent involvement in +the Freedombox project +finally lead me to give it some priority, as I suspect a Freedombox +should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family when +possible, given that most communication between people are between +those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook +communication patterns). It also allow people to communicate without +a central hub to tap into to control and listen in on the private +communication of citizens, which have become more and more important +over the years.

+ +

So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo +working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space +Hackeriet at Husmania. They seem to +have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called +the Oslo +Freifunk project, but this effort seem to be dead and the people +behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called +meshfx. Unfortunately the wiki +site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update, so +the project page can't be updated to point to the new project. The +people at Hackeriet have already invited people from the Freifunk +community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks, and I came across this +video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the speakers about their +talk:

+ +

+ +

I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols. +There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to +figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but +given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it +is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a +completely different setup, and thus this have decided to focus on +batman-adv for now. It sure help to know that the very cool +Serval project in Australia +is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self +organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and +less industrialized communities. Check out this cool video presenting +that project: + +

+ +

According to the wikipedia page on +Wireless +mesh network there are around 70 competing schemes for routing +packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and +B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software +based community mesh networks.

+ +

The batman-adv is a bit special, as it provide layer 2 (as in +ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same +network. One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh vlan you +can bridge to or handle like any other vlan on your computer. The +required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at least since Debian +Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up. A +good +introduction is available from the Open Mesh project. These are +the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:

+ + +Value + + + + +
Setting
Protocol / kernel modulebatman-adv
ESSIDmeshfx@hackeriet
Channel / Frequency11 / 2462
Cell ID02:BA:00:00:00:01
+ +

The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs +in wifi card firmware and drivers. (See a nice post from VillageTelco +about +"Information +about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges! +for details.) When these settings are activated and you have some +other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh +network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to +any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)

+ +

My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node, +but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a +firmware supporting batman-adv. If anyone know how to use that old +wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.

+ +

If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join +us on IRC, either channel +#oslohackerspace +or #nuug on +irc.freenode.net.

+ +

While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old +research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research +and Innovation called +The +reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks and elsewhere +learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at +Grünerløkka in Oslo. So mesh networks are also interesting for +commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard +to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I +know have closed down the experiment. Perhaps Telenor or others would +be interested in a cooperation?