[Commotion-discuss] Some pre-experimentation mesh hardware inquiries

[Chris Ritzo]

This post in the commotion-dev archives has info about minimal images that
Ben West compiled. This might be useful for the TP Link routers or others
with lower system resources.

https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/commotion-dev/2013-January/001001.html


On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 8:47 AM, Andrew Reynolds <
andrew at opentechinstitute.org> wrote:

> That one might be close. It looks like it's supported by OpenWRT under
> the ar71xx target we've had good luck with. The limiting factor will be
> onboard storage. The Commotion PR3 release is 4.1 MB, and it looks like
> the TL-MR3020 only has 4 available.
>
> -andrew
>
> On 02/27/2013 09:36 AM, Christian Huldt wrote:
> > Is it possible to configure olsrd on openwrt on something cheap like
> > TP-Link TL-MR3020 to join a commotion mesh?
> >
> > Andrew Reynolds skrev 2013-02-27 12:59:
> >> Hello!
> >>
> >> We tend to focus on Ubiquiti routers for convenience. We have a lot of
> >> them for our own networks because they're reliable and hard to brick.
> >> Commotion should theoretically run on any OpenWRT-compatible hardware
> >> (http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start). The biggest problem we've run into
> >> is that some of the smaller routers don't have enough storage for all
> >> the Commotion packages. I believe there's a minimal Commotion
> >> configuration somewhere in the developer archives. I will see if I can
> >> find it.
> >>
> >> The setup you describe sounds pretty straightforward. The routers should
> >> just mesh, and there are a couple of ways to add a laptop/fileserver.
> >> You could run the x86 live image, which will turn the laptop into a very
> >> powerful openwrt node, or you could connect the laptop and router via
> >> ethernet cable. Depending on your OS, this might be a good opportunity
> >> to test the new Linux or OS X clients. They're still very rough, but
> >> they might fit in a test network.
> >>
> >> We are in the process of packaging and testing a new Commotion release,
> >> which will add a lot of user interface improvements, as well as some
> >> security features.
> >>
> >> Finally, you can find all of our source code, including packages that
> >> haven't been added to the official release, on our github account
> >> (https://github.com/opentechinstitute).
> >>
> >> Keep us posted on your progress.
> >>
> >> -andrew
> >>
> >>
> >> On 02/27/2013 06:31 AM, Mikael Nordfeldth wrote:
> >>> Hello,
> >>> I'm involved in Umeå Hackerspace, northern Sweden, and we're thinking
> >>> (like so many others) that a wireless mesh network would be great to
> >>> have in our neighbourhood. I've been looking at both Commotion and the
> >>> Byzantium project (http://project-byzantium.org/) for inspiration,
> >>> technology and software.
> >>>
> >>> From what I can tell Commotion currently has OpenWRT builds for some of
> >>> the Ubiquiti hardware and from what I can tell from documentation this
> >>> is a working solution albeit somewhat hacky and developer-oriented. I
> >>> have a little bit of personal budget to kickstart this project and buy
> >>> hardware to experiment with. My first test scenario is to at least have
> >>> three APs/laptops working in a mesh to connect an apartment a couple of
> >>> blocks away from the source internet connection.
> >>>
> >>> Any experience-based suggestions on which hardware is best suited,
> >>> general tips for putting up a network like this etc. for someone who's
> >>> only used two OpenWRT boxes to "bridge" before?
> >>>
> >>> And a bonus inquiry: are there any efforts (or ideas on how much effort
> >>> it would mean) to put Commotion firmware onto common units like the
> >>> Linksys WRT54GL and such?
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Commotion-discuss mailing list
> >> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
>
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