[Commotion-discuss] Has anyone implemented serverless messaging over a mesh?

[Dan Staples]

It depends on how you want to access it, I suppose. If not every node is
running the GIS & CRM servers, then anycast could theoretically work
well, as long as the servers again are in sync. Personally, I don't have
any experience using anycast for fallback support.

What I designed MediaGrid to do was to have each instance advertise
itself on the mesh using multicast DNS. That way, each node collects a
list of all the other nodes running MediaGrid, and starts bi-directional
synchronization with each of them. CouchDB makes this synchronization
super easy and hands off, which is why I use it for the back end. Here's
a script that does the automatic peer discovery and synchronization, in
case it's helpful for your GIS & CRM server idea:
https://github.com/danstaples/MediaGrid/blob/master/resources/mediagrid-discover

Dan

On Tue 29 Oct 2013 10:57:37 PM EDT, Evan Hutchison wrote:
> Thanks Dan!
>
> That is exactly what I am looking for.  The replicated database is
> crucial.  I'll get it up on our sandbox server asap.  I figured you
> all would be working on something like that to complement Commotion. 
>
> Another question-  I want to implement GIS servers and an emergency
> CRM on the Pis but still retain survivability if one or more of the
> devices gets knocked out.  Any thoughts on using an Anycast routing
> scheme and multiple instances of the CRM and map server to achieve
> this?  I'm I barking up the wrong tree?
>
> Best-
> E
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 10:22 PM, Dan Staples
> <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org
> <mailto:danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>> wrote:
>
>     Evan,
>
>     You might want to check out my project MediaGrid:
>     http://mediagrid.disman.tl/
>
>     It implements a decentralized, encrypted webchat service (as well as
>     file sharing), and was designed to run on Raspberry Pis in a mesh
>     network.
>
>     It's decentralized in that each Pi (or whatever device running it)
>     has a
>     database of messages that it continuously synchronizes with the other
>     devices on the mesh, constantly updating with new messages. You
>     can also
>     do private messages to other users in the webchat, similar to IRC.
>
>     Dan
>
>     On 10/29/2013 09:34 PM, Evan Hutchison wrote:
>     > Yes Ben, they do- but it is embedded with the Serval Mesh
>     package which,
>     > as you point out, runs on Android handsets.  We are using BATMAN
>     with
>     > Pis as WAPs and routers, as well as with an existing mesh
>     running over
>     > TP-Link routers- so I want something that can run across different
>     > platforms (Linux, Mac OS, Windows, Android) and is independent
>     of their
>     > system.
>     >
>     > Right after I posted, of course I found kouchat
>     > <https://code.google.com/p/kouchat/> which runs on everything but
>     > IPhones.  It does the trick, but I would like to find something that
>     > allows for MUCs.
>     >
>     > Thanks Dean, will check it out.
>     >
>     >
>     > On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 9:15 PM, Ben West <ben at gowasabi.net
>     <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>
>     > <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >     Doesn't Serval have a messaging implementation that they've
>     used on
>     >     Android handsets?
>     >
>     >
>     >     On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 6:48 PM, Evan Hutchison
>     >     <evan_hutchison at post.harvard.edu
>     <mailto:evan_hutchison at post.harvard.edu>
>     >     <mailto:evan_hutchison at post.harvard.edu
>     <mailto:evan_hutchison at post.harvard.edu>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >         Hi all-
>     >
>     >         I'm working with my media lab class on an off-the-grid
>     emergency
>     >         response mesh network.  We want to integrate messaging.
>      I was
>     >         initially experimenting with a Jabber server but decided
>     >         serverless messaging would better solve the problem- we
>     want to
>     >         avoid centralization as much as possible so that if one node
>     >         goes down, folks can still communicate across the LAN or WAN
>     >
>     >         I ran across a description of an XMPP-like serverless
>     messaging
>     >         system:  http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0174.html
>     >
>     >         Anyone have any experience or insights?
>     >
>     >         Thanks-
>     >         Evan
>     >
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>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     --
>     >     Ben West
>     >     http://gowasabi.net
>     >     ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>
>     <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>>
>     >     314-246-9434 <tel:314-246-9434> <tel:314-246-9434
>     <tel:314-246-9434>>
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
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>     --
>     Dan Staples
>
>     Open Technology Institute
>     https://commotionwireless.net
>     OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
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-- 
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net
OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9