[Voyage-linux] Mesh Networking

Thu Jan 26 22:48:13 HKT 2006

Mesh networking sounds great in theory but when you get a few nodes 
doing large ftp transfers I image the noise would cause  all sorts of 
problems, hidden node issues.

Frottle was written by one of the guys here in Perth for the WaFreeNet 
and is utilised on Hills Hub. Although Ive not used it personally, 
speaking to those who do, its token type arrangement ensures a good 
share of bandwidth regardless of signal strength (within reason) and load.
BGP is the routing protocol of choice for the network btw and APs are 
linked via point to point radios.

</rant>

GregM

ps: thanks to the developers of voyage for a great distro, I'm running 
it on 2 WRAPs and couldn't be happier!

Andrew Niemantsverdriet wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 10:02 +0800, Punky Tse wrote:
>   
>> I see that meshnode (http://www.meshnode.org/downloads/deb-pkgs/) has 
>> the latest version 0.4.10.  But if there are source deb, I can build and 
>> put to voyage apt repository as well.
>>
>>     
>
> I will try it from meshnode.org. I don't have a huge test network to try
> it on but we will see. I see meshnode.org is based on voyage. Is anybody
> on this list that is assoitated with them to give hints?
>
>   
>> Andrew, what is your experience about frottle?
>>
>>     
> Frottle is halfway working. I say half-way because it installs on voyage
> fine and I have gotten it to work on the test bench but so far have been
> unable to make the link in the real world. This is our first 5.xGhz link
> with Voyage and the learning curve has been fairly steep. We have tried
> twice to get the link up and running (it is a five mile shot) but have
> not gotten it linked up. Hopefully we will get this link made soon so I
> can really test frottle (as we can then add the other clients). Thanks
> for the frottle package it installed perfectly for me.
>
>   
>> Keegan, I know you have been asking olsrd 0.4.10 in official debian 
>> repository.  May I know the current status about it?  Otherwise, we may 
>> consider uploading the package by ourself.  I also have frottle package 
>> in voyage repository for uploading too.  I know one debian developer, 
>> who is participating wireless community in Greece may help us in the 
>> process. 
>>
>> Punky
>>
>> Keegan Quinn wrote:
>>     
>>> On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 03:21:13PM -0700, Andrew Niemantsverdriet wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Does anybody have a good link or two to learn about meshing with olsr?
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Unfortunately, I never could find a good practical overview of using OLSR.
>>> Maybe I can answer some of your questions, though.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> I want to learn about it and try it out with a test link but I can't
>>>> figure out where to start. 
>>>>
>>>> Some questions I have:
>>>>
>>>> * Do all nodes need two radios or just one? 
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> I've only ever used OLSR with a single radio.  I suppose you could use two
>>> if you wanted a node to route between 802.11a and 802.11g, for example -
>>> a radio per band.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> * Can I have nodes that have a backhaul type link and have the other
>>>> nodes choose that one as the best path
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Assuming you mean best path to the Internet: you can have your 'backhaul'
>>> node advertise an HNA route for that, or use the dyn_gw plugin to have the
>>> routing daemon automatically advertise the default route if one is available.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> * What would my /etc/network/interfaces file look like
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> It will depend on your wireless hardware, but eg.:
>>>
>>> iface wlan0 inet static
>>> 	address 192.168.0.1
>>> 	netmask 255.255.255.0
>>> 	network 192.168.0.0
>>> 	broadcast 192.168.0.255
>>> 	wireless_mode ad-hoc
>>> 	wireless_essid mesh
>>> 	wireless_channel 6
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> * How big can it get
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> The base package is 324KiB on-disk installed, the plugins 209KiB.  In virtual
>>> memory, my quiet little olsrd running on my notebook is using just a hair
>>> under 2MiB.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> * Dose performance decrease the more hops you have? What is the limit on
>>>> that?
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> I haven't had an opportunity to test with a significant multi-hop network,
>>> so I can't provide any information here.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> * Do any packages exist for voyage?
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> I believe the backports I did for sarge should work on voyage:
>>>
>>> deb http://cornerstone.personaltelco.net/debian ptp sarge
>>>
>>> I'd be interested to hear the results.  Currently, these packages are
>>> 0.4.9, while the latest version is 0.4.10; I hope to have them updated
>>> soon.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> * What is an example of a good topology layout
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> I'm not sure what you mean by this - could you elaborate?
>>>
>>> HTH,
>>>
>>>   
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Voyage-linux mailing list
>>> Voyage-linux at list.voyage.hk
>>> http://list.voyage.hk/mailman/listinfo/voyage-linux
>>>   
>>>       
>>     
>
>
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