Hi Brian, I had evaluated babel, OLSR, and Batman-adv two years ago on a test network of 5 beaglebones to demonstrate wifi mesh networking. I concluded Batman-adv was the one to explore further. I was using Robert Nelson's ubuntu (3.2 kernel) on beaglebone white then. I had tried three different long range wifi dongles from Alpha. The black one (http://www.amazon.com/ Alfa-AWUS036NHA-Wireless-Adaptor-Compatible/dp/B004Y6MIXS) has Atheros ar9271 chipset and has the best kernel support on Beaglebone. The more common model is based on realtek rtl8192cu chipset. Back then rtl8192cu driver on arm was not anywhere near ready. I would still strongly prefer AR9271 based wifi dongle today. I had to use a USB Y-cable to make sure there is sufficient current during boot time to power up the wifi dongle. BB only has a USB host port, so this was a bit inconvenient. I resorted to tie the 5V and GND lines of the USB to a 5V supply to ensure smooth boot.
With a 14" omnidirectional antenna and tx-power cranked up full, I was able to sustain decent connectivity at ~300 meter per hop during field demonstration. For batman-adv, I configured every node's bat0 interface on 192.168.50.x subnet. (wlan0 has its own static address assignment in /etc/network/interfaces) When starting a mesh node, a startbatman.sh is called that has the following: modprobe batman-adv ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1528 batctl if add wlan0 ifconfig bat0 192.168.50.218 up batctl gw client ip route del default ip route add default via 192.168.50.1 On the node serving as gateway through its eth0, I had the additional lines for Network Address Translation. sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 iptables --table nat --append POSTROUTING --out-interface eth0 -j MASQUERADE iptables --append FORWARD --in-interface bat0 -j ACCEPT You could add an @reboot line in /etc/crontab that calls your startbatman.sh on reboot every time. I have not updated this since the switch to 3.8 kernel, but I am pretty sure it would work on the current Debian image. I would recommend you use the 3.14 kernel to benefit from the more reliable USB. George On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Brian Anderson <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > I am interested in setting up a wireless mesh network using a collection > of BBBs (and possibly other devices). Does anyone have experience setting > up a wireless mesh network using BBB? > > I am not really interested in a so-called "wireless distribution system" > that is used to extend an SSID across a wide area using wireless mesh > networking. I am much more interested in setting up a network of > cooperating nodes that talk with each other (and to the internet via a > gateway/mesh portal connected simultaneously to the internet and the mesh). > > In particular, I'm interested in: > > * What distro and kernel are you using? > * Ideally this would be with one of RCNs Debian images, but if not, > I'm interested in what you might have used. > * If you have done something with a Linux based system other than a > BBB, I'd like to know about that too. > * What mesh routing protocol was used? Batman, Babel/AHCP, HWMP, OLSR, > ... > * Steps to configure the mesh network and gateway. > * Did you use 802.11s? If so, presumably using the 802.11s support in > the kernel? > * WiFi chipset that was used (presumably supporting mesh mode). SOFTMAC > or HARDMAC? > > I have researched the topic fairly extensively and can probably set > something up via trial and error myself. Prior to diving into that, I > wanted to see if anyone has already done some work with wireless mesh > networking and BBB (or something else) and would be willing to share their > experience and knowledge! > > Thanks in advance. > > Cheers, > > ba > > -- > For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "BeagleBoard" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
