On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 8:43 PM, Fred Goldstein <fgoldst...@ionary.com> wrote:
> At 9/13/2010 10:57 PM, Jeromie wrote:
>>Sorry, when ever people talk about mesh they most often mean 1 radio
>>meshing.
>
> First-generation "mesh networks" with one radio were awful. I didn't
> think that was what Greg had in mind. Second-generation mesh
> networks separated the backhaul ("meshing") from the user access, and
> worked better. I actually like to use mesh in its original sense, to
> refer to a network with an arbitrary topology allowing multiple links
> per node. It contrasts with star and ring. A mesh is thus a
> redundant network. The Internet is a mesh. SPF is a meshing
> protocol, as is distance vector.
Wifi is not well suited to the lower layer software. It works, but the
radios just were not designed for it. I have been doing multi radio
'mesh' since I started using wifi based gear over canopy.
>
>>Multiradio relays generally do not benefit from most of the
>>mesh software.
>
> Depends on the software, but you may be right with some of the
> freeware mesh software designed for home routers running DD-WRT et al.
>
>>OSPF or rSTP works very well and are generally stable
>>and are generally supported and have many tools.
>
> OSPF operates in IP. I'm trying to do everything at a lower layer
> than that.
What layer are you doing your routing at?
>RSTP works but is still fundamentally stupid; spanning
> tree just avoids loops, but doesn't optimize.
I did not say it did. There are places to use it, like when you have a
end point that can see 2 AP's and failover as needed. If those AP's
are only connected to a switch rstp can be used to disable a port (ill
need to find the script, it was not pretty nor was used long)
>When the "mesh" gets
> complex, you want real routing capabilities. I just have reasons to
> avoid doing this in IP.
Why do you want to avoid the IP layer? The radios while can pass what
ever traffic, are inherently IP devices and switch slowly enough that
speed does not seam like the driving factor.
> But "bridging" is just a bad LAN hack too;
> it doesn't scale to the radio world. I remember when we introduced
> Ethernet bridges at DEC, somewhere around 1985. It sounded like a
> good idea at the time. But a few years later, the head of network
> archicture quipped, "Networks are a drug. Bridged networks are a
> dangerous drug." Of course that was shortly before some
> Microsoft-worshipping IT types started pushing big bridged multi-site
> LAN Manager networks...
At what lower layer? Unless you are changing out the protocol on the
wireless layer its still wifi and still has the limits of wifi.
NStream might work better for this. Bridging is a tool, like all
tools when used poorly, is called a poor tool.
>
>>I keep everything off
>>the radio I possibly can and use them as bridges with a router behind
>>them. With Mt having $40 units that is even easier and faster then
>>ever.
>
> I agree that this is a good idea. I am likely to do some radios as
> cards plugged into the RB, like the SR71-15s which look really
> good. But the access points and some links will be separate, on
> Ethernet. Besides, the Ethernet RocketM sectors look better than
> anything MT has. The specs are pretty close but the scuttlebutt on
> the boards is that the UBNT cards outperform the R52HNs.
I have completely dropped all wireless that is not Ubnt based (well
other then the gear I have not had time to swap and the indoor ap's).
A site can
now have up to 6 AP's between 2.4 and 5ghz and link to a number of
other sites. OSPF works well here. Self interference is still the
biggest issue. I have a site 15 miles out, with a ap pointed 70* off.
Using the Ubnt specan, I can see a few db noise rise (goes away when I
have that ap powered down). All of my R52's (not Ns) died or went into
a super spew mode with lots of noise.
>
>
>>On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 6:46 PM, Fred Goldstein <fgoldst...@ionary.com> wrote:
>> > At 9/13/2010 09:23 PM, you wrote:
>> >>With the low cost of Ubnt gear, why not run real relays? The area is
>> >>small enough to not need a unreasonable amount of relays.
>> >
>> > What do you mean by real relays? A mesh or routed network or
>> > whatever you want to call it is a set of relays. I may be missing
>> > out on what you mean by the term, though; I use it generically.
>> >
>> >>On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Fred Goldstein
>> <fgoldst...@ionary.com> wrote:
>> >> > At 9/13/2010 07:02 PM, you wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >>900 won't do 10 megs.
>> >> >
>> >> > The new Ubiquiti M-series Airmax 900 MHz radios should do it. MCS10
>> >> > in a 5 MHz quarter-channel is around 10 Mbps. A lower-loss path
>> >> > could allow MCS11 or MCS12. While you can't synchronize sectors,
>> >> > they look like they will outperform Canopy at a fraction of the
>> >> > price. Maybe they'll even ship this year. ;-)
>> >> >
>> >> > As to mesh, MT has HWMP+ as a layer 2 meshing protocol. It looks
>> >> > promising, though there has apparently been very little use of it in
>> >> > this hemisphere. But them I'm planning to do everything at layer 2,
>> >> > trying to build a switched network if I can (vs.
>> >> > bridged). BATMAN-Adv does a layer 2 mesh too, your basic open source
>> >> > code. I don't know anyone using that one either. This type of
>> >> > meshing is basically like routing, just operating below IP so it
>> >> > treats IP (or other protocols, hint hint) as payload and doesn't try
>> >> > to deal with IP addresses.
>> >> >
>
> --
> Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com
> ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/
> +1 617 795 2701
>
>
>
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