[Berlin-wireless] Fonera Setup (war: linuxtag freikarten)

[Sven-Ola Tuecke]

Steven,

uuh! Lots of questions :( OK - to sort that out, here are some more 
statements.

Our understanding of a mesh network includes using those cheap devices, to 
form a network. You can - of course - use the precious laptops to join in. 
But in the long run, a mesh only functions, if the nodes (the laptops, PCs, 
the routing boxes running OLSR) are switched on for a longer period. I talk 
about months not minutes. Also, you normally do not want to place the laptop 
on the roof of your house. For example: we do not have OLSR for Vista 
currently - and only a very small number of whiners. We all use those boxes 
to connect (e.g. via DHCP and NAT). You plug in your laptop into the box 
(either by ethernet or by a second Access Point) and go. That's the main 
using model.

You wote, that you (and your friends) don't want to break your "FON promise". 
The ff-fonera-pack is open source, and because of that you are free to do 
anything you like. Some expertize required. Especially the "Chillispot needs 
to fiddle with the default route thing" will be the hurdle to master here. 
Also I expect some dirty policy routing trick are required. I personally do 
not want to make that, because of the reasons I wrote in my last post.

Lets form an example. You have internet access via DSL. You have a fonera 
connected to the DSL line, configured all and switched to "Open". You have 
two friends who bought a Fonera. One has his own DSL line and one not. Your 
own fonera uses 172.16.0.254/12 as meshing IP, channel 3 and 
02:ca:ff:ee:ba:be as meshing BSSID.

Friend1 with DSL line: Thats easy. Just proceed as usual. He can use "Open" 
or "Stealth" modes, which depends on "does he want to share for free" or not. 
He switches to channel 3, configures an arbitrary ESSID (say IZEFON, but I 
would prefer a more sexy name ;-) for meshing and the FON_Friend1 and 
MyPlace_Friend1 as usual. He configures 172.16.0.1/12 as meshing IP. The 
critical thing is the BSSID (the hex number). The meshing ESSID is not really 
used - the BSSID for meshing and the channel needs to be the same on all 
Meshing Foneras. Ah - and you need a Wiki page stating: "Friend1 uses 
172.16.0.1/12" as well as "Steven uses 172.16.0.254/12".

Friend2 without DSL line: To keep the "Fon promise", he normally needs to buy 
a DSL line. The FON-promise is based on that. But: that friend can use for 
example the Steven-DSL via the tunnel setup. Setting up the tunnel stuff is 
easy, and the standad Fonera should be able to run ~ 8 tunnels concurrently 
(depends on memory consumption). The tunnel stuff should be able to handle 
~500kbyte/sec., which in most cases matches your DSL line speed. You will be 
happy if your reach that speed via Meshing some kilometres which requres a 
good antenna setup also. 

The first thing to do is adding "Friend2 uses 172.16.0.2/12" to the wiki page. 
Friend2 configures BSSID, MeshingIP and Channel3. Friend2 also switches 
to "Slave" which basically means: The device has internet via Tunnel and does 
not interfere with the OLSR-HNA-Search-best-Gateway algorithm. He also 
changes the private MyPlace_Friend2 IP range from 192.168.10.1/24 (which is 
the default) to 192.168.11.1/24 (more on this later).

Now Steve switches to Open-Master to let Friend2 in. It needs to be a good 
friend, since he sells your Inet to FON and he has access to your private IP 
range (the 192.168.10.1/24 used for your own MyPlace_Steven domain). Steven 
also enters this to the Freifunk-Advanced/Private IP input 
field: "192.168.10.2:192.168.11.2/24" to let his friend in.

Friend2 now also enter the Freifunk-Advanced page, and enter this to 
the "Private IP" input: "192.168.11.2:192.168.10.2/24". You may not that 
those settings are symmetrical. Friend2 needs to define, which Master to use. 
So he enters this to the "Master IP" input: "172.16.0.254:4711". Which 
basically say: On Stevens fonera, there is an open tunnel endpoint on port 
4711.

After restarting both Foneras, you should notice the "FON_xxx" on the Fonera 
of Friend2. This proves: Setup is working. Ah - you may enter the Foners 
command line or connect to MyPlace_Friend2. Then send "ping 192.168.10.1". 
This proves, that both private IP ranges (the 192.168.10.1/24 and 
192.168.11.1/24) are linked by routing and theres no firewalling in between.

Phew. Much blabla. I hope this will help you a bit.
// Sven-Ola

Am Freitag, 1. Juni 2007 21:43 schrieb Steven Leeman:
> Hi,
>
> Thank you for the information...
> The EGO mode i can not use... there is a fon promise to keep the fon_ap
> working
> Also i'm not for the STEALTH mode ... when you visit Belgium... you are
> allowed to use your olsrd equipped pc to use my "freifunk" network :-)
>
> But all (wannabe) volunteers here have a fonera so they would have "free"
> access(Linus)...and for the rest we have a "guest" ,"guest" friends
> password if necessary :-)
> Our benefit currently is that there are "fon" clients written for mac osX ,
> mobile windows, symbian, java, linux and windows...I can't find much olsrd
> drivers for all these platforms :( also due to not using any encryption...
> any device can connect to fon_ap; even the sony PSP of my neighbour...
>
> Currently we use a "repeater" script found in the Italian Ponte2, French
> Francofon or the German Freewlan addons for the FON device
> (repeat existing wifi adsl routers...or repeat signal of the neighbour)
> But i'm curious if a OLSRD can be used as a backbone for this...
>
> Almost 80% will be able to add their internet connection so they can
> configure "open_master" ?
> and those that don't have "internet" they have to switch to open_slave?
> what happens exactly in network language?
> Also what is currently bridged/connected.... currently I read it as both
> networks are literally seperate of each other?
> * MASTER/SLAVE... it is a fixed setting? it's not like a failover cluster
> that can switch to slave if it sees his internet goes down? and goes back
> to master when it has a direct connection to internet?
>
> configuration...
> * I have to put all fon's on a fixed channel (choise on 3 channels)
> * I have to choose thesame SSID for all fonera's addhoc Freifunk mesh?
> * I have to give them all a fixed ip number... so FON_1 (Private_1) i could
> give 172.16.0.1 for instance ... and SSID "IZEFON" as freifunk ssid and
> channel 3
>
> Then when installing them at peoples homes by just "powering" them up it
> will find the SSID of the FON_2 accross the street that also carries SSID
> "IZEFON" on channel 3 and "links" with it...
>
> now if both are "master"... what happens with the signal?
> is there still a backbone or are they both entirely stand alone?
> The only thing they can do is perform a"ping" from 172.16.0.1 to
> 172.16.0.2? and probably only on the device itself as via the
> lan/fon_ap/myplace there
> is no routing to the mesh?