One of the items that I think people are confusing is that the gateway (mesh_gate_announcement=1) setting doesn't mean a Layer 3 (IP routing) gateway, it is a layer 2 (MAC level) gateway to another layer 2 network (i.e. ethernet, wifi, etc.)
All this does is tell the rest of the mesh that if communications is destined for a non-mesh located MAC address then it can (or could) be accessed through this gateway node. Implementing the layer 3 routing is outside the scope of 802.11s and needs to be implemented separately, like you did with adding default gateway to each node, or alternative with a routing protocol, like rip2 or the like. Regards, David. On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Justyn Bell <[email protected]> wrote: > Maxe and others, > > I have been wondering this as well. We have set up a small network of nodes > on some ALIX boards and would like one of them to act as a backhaul to the > internet. > > What's working for us is this: On the backhaul node, we can connect to the > internet via the ethernet port. One of the wireless cards on our node is up > and connected to our mesh with our assigned mesh ip subnet. In order to > direct traffic from other nodes to the internet, we had to do some ip > masquerading on the backhaul node, and physically set the default gateway on > all the other nodes to point to the backhaul node. > > Specifically, on the backhaul node: > > iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING ! -d 10.1.0.0/16 -j MASQUERADE > > (10.1.0.0/16 is our mesh subnet) then > > sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 > > On all the other nodes connected to the mesh, we have to do > > route add default gw {ip address of backhaul node that has internet > connection} > > > In that manner, we can ping the internet (assuming we can ping the internet > from our backhaul node) from any other node connected to the mesh network. > > However, this is not the instructions given in the HOWTO, and am still > pretty confused on configuring the nodes, ie setting the parameters > > iw mesh set mesh_param mesh_hwmp_rootmode=1 > iw mesh set mesh_param mesh_gate_announcements=1 > > The part I don't understand is even if the "mesh gate" announces that it has > an external connection, the other nodes on the mesh network don't update > their routing tables. So pinging any external address can't happen. > Also related to the above, the HOWTO instructs the user to bridge a mesh > interface with an ethernet interface (for example) and assign the bridge a > mesh ip. So, I guess, in order to connect to an external network, your mesh > network has to be in the same subnet as the external network. That is, if > your DHCP server is 192.168.112.129, your mesh has to be in the > 192.168.0.0/16 subnet. Right? > > I'm pretty new to the whole mesh networking thing, but I hope this post > helps Maxe "jimmy-rig" a mesh to connect to the internet, and also gets some > attention and some answers on this topic, as I'm pretty sure I'm > misunderstanding what above mentioned mesh_param's should do. > > -Justyn > > > On 05/04/2012 03:03 AM, maxe wifi wrote: > > Dear All, > > > Can anyone help me in 802.11s mesh internet connectivity. > > > Thanks > Maxe > > > _______________________________________________ > Devel mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.open80211s.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel > > > > _______________________________________________ > Devel mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.open80211s.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel > _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.open80211s.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel
