[Commotion-discuss] Next step:extend the range of a local mesh network.

Tue Aug 13 20:56:38 UTC 2013

Hi Luigi,

Glad to hear about all the successes!

I have made a mesh network from Raspberry Pis before (battery-powered,
even), so it's definitely possible. The main challenge is to pick a good
USB wireless adapter. I recommend the TP-Link TL-WN722N [1], since its
driver supports ad-hoc mode in recent Linux kernels.

Then, you install your Raspberry Pi operating system (I recommend
Raspbian), and configure the wireless adapter to be in ad-hoc mode with
the correct SSID,BSSID,channel, etc. This is done in
/etc/network/interfaces...if you need info on how to to that, I can give
you resources.

Then you can install and configure OLSRd on the Pi, so that it can mesh
with the other devices. For an olsrd config file, you can look at
/var/etc/olsrd.conf on one of your picostations for an example.

Let us know how that goes!

-Dan

[1] http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WN722N

On 08/13/2013 12:04 PM, LuigiScop wrote:
> 
> It was a pleasure to join Commotion team several  months ago.
> With your support I was able to implement a local mesh newtwork with
> two routers (picostation), my  two Linux LapTops and Iphone.
> I have also tested the capabiity of commotiont application portal by
> installing either Tidepools and MediGrid.
> Most of the time spent to play with the raspberry and after installing
> MediaGrid.
> Everything works.I tried to upload and share some music and the chat.
> 
> Based on this experience I have some questions.
> a)How to make the Raspberry pi part of the Mesh?In my application I have
> connected it to the AP as external device.
> b)Is there any future for the integration of raspberry in the commotion
> network?
> 
> Last question.
> c)My idea is to buy two Nanostations and to extend the range of my local
> mesh.
> Any suggestion based on your experience?
> To reach longer distances(1 to 2  miles)I would choose a 5Ghz (the power
> limit in Italy is 1 W output power at 5Ghz).Much more less for Wifi(15dbm).
> Thanks for your support and suggestions.
> 
> Luigi
> 
> Il 19/06/2013 14:00, commotion-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net ha
> scritto:
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>     1. Commotion installation on Linux laptop (LuigiScop)
>>     2. Re: Commotion installation on Linux laptop (Dan Staples)
>>     3. Material for a workshop on mesh networks (Alexander Chemeris)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:37:36 +0200
>> From: LuigiScop <luigi.scopelliti at fastwebnet.it>
>> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> Subject: [Commotion-discuss] Commotion installation on Linux laptop
>> Message-ID: <51C0B700.4000207 at fastwebnet.it>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>
>>
>> Everything at home which has a wifi interface can be connected and the
>> network(built by 2 picostations) is working as ad-hoc network.
>>     If the fridge,the oven or the stove had a wifi interface, they would
>> be connected to commotionwireless.net too.
>>      The only issue I have found is that if I try to access internet with
>> the  linux laptop  using the ad-hoc interface of the AP router,I can't.
>>      But if I use the router AP as master ,I can.
>>      I red somewhere that this feature is not avalable for laptop. Please
>> confirm.
>>      On the other end if I connect a local web server to the POE LAN port
>> of one router, I can have access to the  web page also from the linux
>> laptop through the  ad-hoc  interface     of the router(picostation).
>>      As a demo to show the capabilities of commotion solution I would
>> like to implement a Server application.
>>      Which application  do you suggest first that can explain better the
>> commotion solution capabilities?
>>      I need to recruit some people on ths project.
>>
>>       Luigi
>>
>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Commotion-discuss mailing list
>>> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
>> When connecting your laptop to the picostation over ad-hoc, do you have
>> olsrd running on the laptop? If so, and if the picostation has access to
>> the internet, your laptop should get a route via olsrd to the internet
>> as well.
>>
>> To troubleshoot this, try checking the output of "nc localhost 2006" (to
>> show olsrd info), and "route -n" on the laptop to show local routes.
>>
>> As for applications, I would suggest either Tidepools (a local mapping
>> application: http://www.tidepools.co/) or MediaGrid (a secure
>> file-sharing and webchat application:
>> https://github.com/danstaples/MediaGrid). They both require a good bit
>> of tinkering to work well, but could be a fun project. Or you could try
>> for something simpler to setup, like an Apache web server.
>>
>> Also, when you have the server set up, try using the application portal
>> on the picostation
>> (https://code.commotionwireless.net/projects/commotion/wiki/Application_Portal).
>>
>> When you "add an application", it will show up automatically on other
>> routers nearby within a few minutes!
>>
>> Dan
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net
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