[Commotion-discuss] Commotion installation on Linux laptop

Tue Jun 18 22:51:55 UTC 2013

On 06/18/2013 03:37 PM, LuigiScop wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
>     ps.  I 'm pretty sure to be in Berlin on October for ISCWN
> 
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:11:02 -0400
>> From: Dan Staples <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>
>> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> Subject: Re: [Commotion-discuss] Commotion installation on Linux
>>     laptop
>> Message-ID: <51B5DE76.9070801 at opentechinstitute.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> I honestly don't know what could have changed in the router firmware
>> with a month that would suddenly cause it to work. We've been doing a
>> lot of bug fixing over the last couple months, that it could have been a
>> number of things. The 24/5 images on the website now are the stable
>> images. Did you find out if the ad-hoc network was encrypted, indicated
>> by iwinfo?
>>
>> Also, since you'll be much closer than us, you should consider coming to
>> the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks this October in
>> Berlin: wirelesssummit.org. The Commotion dev team will be there for
>> sure.
>>
>> On 06/09/2013 04:16 PM, LuigiScop wrote:
>>> Dan,Mikael,Andrew thanks for your suggestions.
>>>
>>> At the end It was possible to have the meshing between the 2
>>> Picostations and my Linux laptop.
>>> Everything is working now.
>>> Here the steps I did.
>>>
>>> The first action was to verify if my laptop was supporting ad-hoc mode.
>>> a) With "lsmod" I have  verified that the driver iwlwifi was installed.
>>> b)With "lspci -v" I found the chipset of the wireless device:Intel
>>> Centrino Advanced-N6200.
>>> It easy to find that the ad-hoc mode is supported.Go to
>>> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi
>>>
>>> c)I have investigated the second possibilty :if the router was
>>> supporting the encryption and the nm-mesh-applet not.
>>> So I followed the suggestion of Andrew on Commotion-discuss Digest,
>>> Vol 9, Issue 6,and I tried to connect by olsr
>>> olsrd -d1 -i wlan0 -f
>>> /etc/nm-dispatcher-olsrd/commotionwireless.net.conf
>>>
>>> and checking the encryption setting on the router and on my
>>> laptop(using scan).
>>> I found several inconsistencies between the output of  the router web
>>> page and the laptop setting.And more ..
>>> I don't want to report all the list of inconsistencies.
>>> So I had the suspect that I was using an old release of the software.
>>> I flashed the router with the available release on April 2013 .
>>> For this trial I used the new
>>> ...openwrt-ar71xx-generic-ubnt-bullet-m-squashfs-factory.bin posted
>>> on 24/5/2013.
>>>
>>> With this release everything worked at the first attempt.
>>> So it is up to you,now,to explain the main differences between the
>>> current  release and the 1 month old one.
>>>
>>> Luigi
>>>
>>> ps .To answer to Dan,I live in FANO http://www.fano.it/ and I'm try
>>> to involve some people to work on this very interesting project
>>> supported by Commotion.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Message: 1
>>>> Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:32:04 -0400
>>>> From: Dan Staples <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>
>>>> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>> Subject: Re: [Commotion-discuss] Commotion installation on Linux
>>>>     laptop
>>>> Message-ID: <51AF9234.5030407 at opentechinstitute.org>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>>>
>>>> Hi Luigi,
>>>>
>>>> Sorry for taking a while to respond. There are two possibilities I can
>>>> think of why you might not be able to mesh with your laptop. The first
>>>> is that your wireless driver on your laptop simply doesn't support
>>>> ad-hoc mode; many do not, including my own laptop. Do you know what
>>>> chipset you are using? It would also help to see the output of "lsmod",
>>>> to see what drivers are loaded. You might want to also consider using a
>>>> USB wifi adapter that is known to do ad-hoc, such as the TL-WN821N:
>>>> http://www.tp-link.us/products/details/?model=TL-WN821N
>>>>
>>>> The second idea is that, if you are using DR1 version of
>>>> Commotion-OpenWRT, then ad-hoc encryption is turned on by default, but
>>>> the nm-mesh-applet software currently does not support encryption. From
>>>> the router, can you give the output of "iwinfo wlan0-1 info"? You will
>>>> see whether encryption is turned on or not.
>>>>
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>> On 05/22/2013 09:31 AM, LuigiScop wrote:
>>>>> Hi Dan,
>>>>> I was already registered on the olsrd list and I have forwarded my
>>>>> email also to them.
>>>>> To be honest their answer was to contact you (Commotion).
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that my problem can be checked easily from you.
>>>>>
>>>>> More info about my problem.
>>>>> The Ubuntu is  rel.13.04.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is what I had done.
>>>>> After to run olsrd I tried  to connect my laptop to the Picostation
>>>>> using the mesh network commotionwireless.net.
>>>>>
>>>>> The signal is very good but no connectivity exists .
>>>>>
>>>>> I tried with the ping command from my laptop but the IP address
>>>>> 5.10..... of the picostation is not recognized:unkown IP address.
>>>>>
>>>>> Therfore one of the possible reason of this,I guess, could be the
>>>>> error I have got after thr olsr installation.
>>>>> I have reported it to you in the previous email.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other side if I use the picostation as AP and the laptop as
>>>>> client everything is working.Also the WDS.
>>>>> Also if I look at the two Picosatation as mesh nodes(see the picture)
>>>>> everything works.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> To summarize:
>>>>> How can I make to work my 2 picostation and the linux laptop as  part
>>>>> of meshed netowork ?
>>>>>
>>>>> I know that I'm not very precise and accurate, but if I have to do
>>>>> some trials in order you can understand better what i'm doing, let me
>>>>> know.
>>>>>
>>>>> Luigi
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Messaggio originale----- From:
>>>>> commotion-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 2:00 PM
>>>>> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> Subject: Commotion-discuss Digest, Vol 8, Issue 9
>>>>>
>>>>> Send Commotion-discuss mailing list submissions to
>>>>> commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>>
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>>>>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>>>> than "Re: Contents of Commotion-discuss digest..."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Today's Topics:
>>>>>
>>>>>    1. Re: Commotion installation on Linux laptop (Dan Staples)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Message: 1
>>>>> Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 15:29:57 -0400
>>>>> From: Dan Staples <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>
>>>>> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Commotion-discuss] Commotion installation on Linux
>>>>> laptop
>>>>> Message-ID: <519BCB35.5050200 at opentechinstitute.org>
>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Luigi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Someone forwarded your question to the commotion-dev list, and some
>>>>> folks have responded:
>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/commotion-dev/2013-May/001397.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd recommend signing up for that list if you haven't yet, as it is
>>>>> where we discuss the more technical aspects of Commotion.
>>>>>
>>>>> cheers,
>>>>> Dan
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon 20 May 2013 06:52:31 AM EDT, LuigiScop wrote:
>>>>>> I 'm trying to run olsrd on my Linux ubuntu by following the
>>>>>> procedure
>>>>>> on https://code.commotionwireless.net/projects/commotion-linux
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I get the error:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> lscopelliti at lscopelliti-Latitude-E4310:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/olsrd
>>>>>> start
>>>>>> Setting mesh on 'wlan0' to channel 5:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>      attaching to 'commotionwireless.net' with BSSID
>>>>>> '02:ca:ff:ee:ba:be'
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Turning off NetworkManager wifi control: done Setting up ad-hoc
>>>>>> networking: Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (8B20) :
>>>>>>
>>>>>>      SET failed on device wlan0 ; Network is down.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> done
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Setting up IP address: done
>>>>>>
>>>>>> OLSR ad-hoc setup on wlan0 using commotionwireless.net on channel 5
>>>>>> with IP 172.29.135.151
>>>>>>
>>>>>>      ad-hoc Cell BSSID: 00:00:00:00:00:00 olsrd already running,
>>>>>> doing
>>>>>> nothing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any help?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> luigi
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Commotion-discuss mailing list
>>>>>> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Dan Staples
>>>>>
>>>>> Open Technology Institute
>>>>> https://commotionwireless.net
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Subject: Digest Footer
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> End of Commotion-discuss Digest, Vol 8, Issue 9
>>>>> ***********************************************
>>>>>
>>>>>
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> _______________________________________________
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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

-- 
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net