Fw: WiFi router networking?

jim bell

15 Sep 2015 15 Sep '15

5:21 p.m.

Has anyone heard of an idea to use individual WiFi routers to communicate in a mesh net? (Or, at least differently than it may have been done before.) If you look at a map of WiFi routers (www.wigle.net) in any given area, you will see that the vast majority of routers are physically close to many other routers, certainly close enough to communicate with each other, and ultimately over a long distance. A crowd-sourced communication system, one that wouldn't necessarily go through the Internet backbone. Conceptually related to the Bittorrent system. I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct Jim Bell

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From that URL:

"Wi-Fi Direct, initially called Wi-Fi P2P, is a Wi-Fi standard enabling devices to easily connect with each other without requiring a wireless access point.[1] It is usable for everything from internet browsing to file transfer,[2][3] and to communicate with more than one device simultaneously at typical Wi-Fi speeds.[4] One advantage of Wi-Fi Direct is the ability to connect devices even if they are from different manufacturers. Only one of the Wi-Fi devices needs to be compliant with Wi-Fi Direct to establish a peer-to-peer connection that transfers data directly between them with greatly reduced setup.[citation needed] Wi-Fi Direct negotiates the link with a Wi-Fi Protected Setup system that assigns each device a limited wireless access point. The "pairing" of Wi-Fi Direct devices can be set up to require the proximity of a near field communication, a Bluetooth signal, or a button press on one or all the devices. Wi-Fi Direct may not only replace the need for routers, but may also replace the need of Bluetooth for applications that do not rely on low energy.[5]"

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Me

15 Sep 15 Sep

5:55 p.m.

iirc set your WiFi router to bridge mode and tell it the ssid of the mesh network and your done. On September 15, 2015 12:21:10 PM CDT, jim bell wrote:

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Has anyone heard of an idea to use individual WiFi routers to communicate in a mesh net? (Or, at least differently than it may have been done before.) If you look at a map of WiFi routers (www.wigle.net) in any given area, you will see that the vast majority of routers are physically close to many other routers, certainly close enough to communicate with each other, and ultimately over a long distance. A crowd-sourced communication system, one that wouldn't necessarily go through the Internet backbone. Conceptually related to the Bittorrent system. I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

Jim Bell

From that URL:

"Wi-Fi Direct, initially called Wi-Fi P2P, is a Wi-Fi standard enabling devices to easily connect with each other without requiring a wireless access point.[1] It is usable for everything from internet browsing to file transfer,[2][3] and to communicate with more than one device simultaneously at typical Wi-Fi speeds.[4] One advantage of Wi-Fi Direct is the ability to connect devices even if they are from different manufacturers. Only one of the Wi-Fi devices needs to be compliant with Wi-Fi Direct to establish a peer-to-peer connection that transfers data directly between them with greatly reduced setup.[citation needed] Wi-Fi Direct negotiates the link with a Wi-Fi Protected Setup system that assigns each device a limited wireless access point. The "pairing" of Wi-Fi Direct devices can be set up to require the proximity of a near field communication, a Bluetooth signal, or a button press on one or all the devices. Wi-Fi Direct may not only replace the need for routers, but may also replace the need of Bluetooth for applications that do not rely on low energy.[5]"

-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Nymble

16 Sep 16 Sep

5:46 p.m.

New subject: WiFi router networking?

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On Sep 15, 2015, at 10:21 AM, jim bell wrote:

Has anyone heard of an idea to use individual WiFi routers to communicate in a mesh net? Yes .. but usually using proprietary routing or 802.11s.

...

(Or, at least differently than it may have been done before.) If you look at a map of WiFi routers (www.wigle.net) in any given area, you will see that the vast majority of routers are physically close to many other routers, certainly close enough to communicate with each other, and ultimately over a long distance. A crowd-sourced communication system, one that wouldn't necessarily go through the Internet backbone. Conceptually related to the Bittorrent system. I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct This technology is intended for ‘direct’ peer-to-peer links and is being used for a few applications like phone to TV video streaming. It’s not really a P2P technology in that one device always becomes the equivelent of a normal ‘AP’. It makes it difficult to scale to larger topologies.

A better Wi-Fi P2P solution is: http://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-aware http://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-aware It’s new, but hopefully we’ll be seeing rapid incorporation into products. For a change, the specifications are free and worth a browse. The P2P discovery model is intentionally blinded to a degree by the use of truncated hashes of the ‘service names’ (6 octets). P2P data exchanges are possible pre-association (no connection overhead). Paul

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Jim Bell

From that URL:

"Wi-Fi Direct, initially called Wi-Fi P2P, is a Wi-Fi standard enabling devices to easily connect with each other without requiring a wireless access point.[1] It is usable for everything from internet browsing to file transfer,[2][3] and to communicate with more than one device simultaneously at typical Wi-Fi speeds.[4] One advantage of Wi-Fi Direct is the ability to connect devices even if they are from different manufacturers. Only one of the Wi-Fi devices needs to be compliant with Wi-Fi Direct to establish a peer-to-peer connection that transfers data directly between them with greatly reduced setup.[citation needed] Wi-Fi Direct negotiates the link with a Wi-Fi Protected Setup system that assigns each device a limited wireless access point. The "pairing" of Wi-Fi Direct devices can be set up to require the proximity of a near field communication, a Bluetooth signal, or a button press on one or all the devices. Wi-Fi Direct may not only replace the need for routers, but may also replace the need of Bluetooth for applications that do not rely on low energy.[5]"

jim bell

8:28 p.m.

New subject: WiFi router networking?

From: Nymble To: jim bell

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This technology is intended for ‘direct’ peer-to-peer links and is being used for a few applications like phone to TV video streaming. It’s not> really a P2P technology in that one device always becomes the equivelent of a normal ‘AP’. It makes it difficult to scale to larger topologies. You ought to be more careful when you use the acronym "AP" in emails to me. Might be misinterpreted! B^) Jim Bell

The Doctor

18 Sep 18 Sep

5:17 p.m.

New subject: WiFi router networking?

On Wed, 16 Sep 2015 10:46:17 -0700 Nymble wrote:

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Has anyone heard of an idea to use individual WiFi routers to communicate in a mesh net? Yes .. but usually using proprietary routing or 802.11s.

Most of the projects out there are using OLSR (http://www.olsr.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page). A few are using the Babel protocol (https://github.com/jech/babeld). n.b., there is a difference between using a mesh networking protocol to distribute routes, and using IP forwarding to actually push the packets around. The two together are required.

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(Or, at least differently than it may have been done before.) If you look at a map of WiFi routers (www.wigle.net) in any given area, you will see that the vast majority of routers are physically close to many other routers, certainly close enough to communicate with each other, and ultimately over a long distance. A crowd-sourced communication system, one that

Most wireless mapping software out these doesn't see interfaces in ad-hoc mode, only infrastructure mode. Thus, Wigle may not be the best way of mapping mesh networks in the greater context of wireless access points.

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wouldn't necessarily go through the Internet backbone. Conceptually related to the Bittorrent system. I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

Wi-Fi direct is useful for short range comms. We've had a lot of trouble making it work over longer ranges. Wireless radios designed for use in infrastructure mode (including emitted power and duty cycle) are more reliable in the field.

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A better Wi-Fi P2P solution is: http://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-aware http://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-aware

Another standard. Yay. Time to find the docs and start reading...

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It’s new, but hopefully we’ll be seeing rapid incorporation into products. For a change, the specifications are free and worth a browse. The P2P discovery model is intentionally blinded to a degree by the use of truncated hashes of the ‘service names’ (6 octets). P2P data exchanges are possible pre-association (no connection overhead).

There are other discovery models in use. It'll be interesting to see how they compare. -- The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415] [ZS] PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ "You've seen one elemental core, you've seen 'em all."

Steve Kinney

17 Sep 17 Sep

12:07 a.m.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 09/15/2015 01:21 PM, jim bell wrote:

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Has anyone heard of an idea to use individual WiFi routers to communicate in a mesh net? (Or, at least differently than it may have been done before.) If you look at a map of WiFi routers (www.wigle.net) in any given area, you will see that the vast majority of routers are physically close to many other routers, certainly close enough to communicate with each other, and ultimately over a long distance. A crowd-sourced communication system, one that wouldn't necessarily go through the Internet backbone. Conceptually related to the Bittorrent system. I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

A friend turned me on to this some time ago. I have yet to set up any mesh networks but it does look VERY promising. http://hsmm-mesh.org/ :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJV+gRWAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0L55UP/0hIU5rXZbuw0hdLu2HzLiM8 ThqwIFN2r9hgQmrbmMAKoW6gRCKyllqR9Tdpzc6euP6cTdeIt8PYb37PTljCNKuj Ce/Jp0QsVbtKXUhww1MKOSVR5rARhxU5YfN6bjDN3Ivq6FKIXFwrSg2dXnq+DC3f XI56/TeBgRKKv6cZYHULFBCbsxfptf/26yhCMF83TbXxYLA+W262DHpVTi26s0xw 2lmuBpvyz7P9mCQcsM/PtJHPdkbY7OSdw9YahVaWcVvXcIFtLHCKvpUs+7E8SFHM BrgjRrC+Ti2aMwCdCRwp9T8YXD16JMbAld52n3TdHnNLNnwNYC4xYwliXOm1KYRq WFdVVYfL471otl5vjKMBx17NAkk0xr3acP0hetlP2hGCRV+mqFN4id/QlwkMhpcZ Ff68yekEPsVtDbqWeD5YqZQTQgVBJBvlZCOTUtlxrLpmt1LKiyuwjKL9awfxJfvu aI4MWxb3wHaU86GU0JVG8dyeRlQEuEMAgtSq8V1ha6BVw+HT+dWxVXFioNegBOwp p1IgfLo3A7PJ7kB8XrPDzMQ5vdIvTqDnl/yotCU66qZPL/Je0HdMlQ5j3ROJFbG2 5RBaIGQ4ii2ep6Ku+EnRJmk021Zp59o8dCM00vLBNvFMIk7cmDvhUH7uylq1uBjO JR6lo32GZPfKXfK5D97I =HR+9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Christian Gagneraud

12:33 a.m.

On 17/09/15 12:07, Steve Kinney wrote:

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On 09/15/2015 01:21 PM, jim bell wrote:

...
Has anyone heard of an idea to use individual WiFi routers to communicate in a mesh net? (Or, at least differently than it may have been done before.) If you look at a map of WiFi routers (www.wigle.net) in any given area, you will see that the vast majority of routers are physically close to many other routers, certainly close enough to communicate with each other, and ultimately over a long distance. A crowd-sourced communication system, one that wouldn't necessarily go through the Internet backbone. Conceptually related to the Bittorrent system. I just found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

A friend turned me on to this some time ago. I have yet to set up any mesh networks but it does look VERY promising.

http://hsmm-mesh.org/

This might be of interest too: https://freifunk.net/en/ Chris

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:o)

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The Doctor

18 Sep 18 Sep

5:24 p.m.

On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 12:33:37 +1200 Christian Gagneraud wrote:

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This might be of interest too: https://freifunk.net/en/

The Freifunk folks are good people and do good work. It's definitely worth looking at their software and getting in touch with them. They're also working in a much more friendly regulatory environment. -- The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415] [ZS] PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ "You've seen one elemental core, you've seen 'em all."

The Doctor

5:23 p.m.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2015 20:07:52 -0400 Steve Kinney wrote:

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A friend turned me on to this some time ago. I have yet to set up any mesh networks but it does look VERY promising. http://hsmm-mesh.org/

It's an okay networking technology. It's a few generations behind what we're actually fielding these days but they're using OLSR for maintaining the routing table, so that's something. It's also hams only, so I'd advise caution if you don't have your ticket but want to experiment with it, new nodes that aren't recognized will draw a lot of attention. One of the gotchas from their FAQ: "You can't use Wi-Fi to connect to a mesh node from your computer, netbook, smart phone or other wireless device." Back to hardwiring. Go Ubiquiti. Linksys hardware is bobbins these days. https://openwrt.org/ -- The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415] [ZS] PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ "You've seen one elemental core, you've seen 'em all."

Steve Kinney

19 Sep 19 Sep

10:40 a.m.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 09/18/2015 01:23 PM, The Doctor wrote:

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On Wed, 16 Sep 2015 20:07:52 -0400 Steve Kinney wrote:

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A friend turned me on to this some time ago. I have yet to set up any mesh networks but it does look VERY promising. http://hsmm-mesh.org/

[...] It's also hams only, so I'd advise caution if you don't have your ticket but want to experiment with it, new nodes that aren't recognized will draw a lot of attention.

I don't think that's a problem, since consumer grade routers don't have enough power to require a licensed operator. High gain antennas may be a gray area here, but since these would be pointed at participating reconfigured routers I don't think that would raise any eyebrows.

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One of the gotchas from their FAQ: "You can't use Wi-Fi to connect to a mesh node from your computer, netbook, smart phone or other wireless device." Back to hardwiring.

Yup, needs an ethernet connection for user access. Forwarding a mesh network router to a conventionally configured WiFi router is not a problem I have looked at yet, but I believe it should be easy. (He said, heedless of Finagle's Ghost hovering over his shoulder.) :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJV/Tu0AAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0LPLgQAJF/ASOzwmqj9snlDq8qFgh3 yO7vCpBN3k7SyebCthcUxVbFrBVp4S9FqH8lOh2PBXd+TGbgXE0aDMyOS16DLKNX CTAWnHUC1ek2uWZ9NP5fyMQex09l6aFjGKpx3+F5bXwGk4KtEz/P6dTsNzT5c/JL /muglYjet1L/miGzxinod7yDWWJFWfUas4kMh9ZyO4faPrqWOdcMqybSENX0diiW lOQdhgJZTHVgJF+MjjRt/eVBGi6ruSNpFDrWD2uoFnHt3gS3CSdi8ao8gSfRfLdZ HdczmLpqx3Ls5CCM2PClJhZDq643prsks/gzfIrT2MDssrppYxlLwiGUsc/Tb1zr LQ8m92Fzz/o1kSCetf1SmgHK4wue7vMBfyl5jhalvFh68d03g9YbF3zrq0v0+ZPb 6QeCBrz6xc93DVnA+5hV5z+4iB4QeboX6vkrLnSHOZRGS6o9khz7JAbl8Z6Afmee GPWBp2SOogbgC7MHYDAvEDmhd9t8gkhtZpOgu4ajeyPAZZDbSIJnY1ykW0yHrjq0 uXqMQFBZ7iQ49yqdRnLqXjENBbVT27LWHq91lha/xhiN6//hNK6p2Q+5NAzpsDiq zpo8r3h/7iC//xghjJSpWjTRoO5We3vlevrIKF5FmSSCMr1Zeof/fQFa85htjVED d4YqQWRIMNG+LRcUeI6p =67tY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

The Doctor

21 Sep 21 Sep

6:53 p.m.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 06:40:54 -0400 Steve Kinney wrote:

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I don't think that's a problem, since consumer grade routers don't have enough power to require a licensed operator. High gain antennas may be a gray area here, but since these would be pointed

When I was working in this problem space, I was advised to err on the side of caution with regard to high gain antennae due to PEP.

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at participating reconfigured routers I don't think that would raise any eyebrows.

I advise being polite.

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Yup, needs an ethernet connection for user access. Forwarding a mesh network router to a conventionally configured WiFi router is not a problem I have looked at yet, but I believe it should be

It's pretty straightforward to do. Just make sure they're on different channels for best efficiency (took me a couple of hours to figure that one out... oops.) - -- The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415] [ZS] PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Perl script. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJWAFI/AAoJED1np1pUQ8Rk4UAQAILp+OnInw6uuRXSr8JZEbmS 8zgOLyvOLQ5skWFS4n3+HKRHiDirDO/yncbzSzfIgabSYd+2sSpbLN2td4SJjpfW w6otCv1qTREo9LQiSv7xqVyePCt9alAVHRyOiGFSUFwk5ej9QULHuAlHqJebohK1 saPmmx2HMiy6wINoN7BhwRGe/AHtpI0SfY2pS1pQ5YW5fPx7r1cdeDHKQdZrPEHZ WPYn3S3W41+JbZaodGYI3PyoG/UgNL1+cw089A77YO6pvlahlnbLPV2jTJL0UPqk pNORflf0xYP8N84pF3RcenYtzSLywvl5YbCGOatNA8V0aV47bvaWr/CK17pLmHkv 0KbQj9WB/KJUE4UrNw2pjH++wdX59i+EzzyM/f3qm1DOe+MM9933fNfvu2xJBEnz WqzKxpAfyjPohFS0ZbrAsmnkUOmYjmF+hpJyTYZaHKJQGhlEGfyAWLJ3a8Q2bp9P e2/ooAwtjhUsqzXjkFELqeMxYPjHWnK8R+EzvoxA5jUV8Tb/FLFNAacwb5nHlSix ra8+AVoEzx7rNb/l0wZzRLMp4URCqrFv9MJyxqzmXiBwv8u+NqUmN6Pkmwn3LSY2 sLg48v8xV8dJw2zXxrd5bA1bFOTb3vfkHTi/bag+FI35iakzkR9va2jZ0ciocbBT DI0VunuFBJA7tT+Gc713 =iOI/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Christian Gagneraud
jim bell
Me
Nymble
Steve Kinney
The Doctor