[Commotion-discuss] networking/guidelines-for-mesh/

Anthony S tony at rhicenter.org
Fri Apr 10 11:49:58 EDT 2015


My two cents, having worked with Commotion for 2 years, but now moving back
to AirOS and Unifi software, on Ubiquity hardware is the following:
If you have a expert programmer, (linux, I believe), who is able to "open
up the hood" of the network and understand the complexity of the mesh, be
able to make adjustments, build monitoring software, etc, Commotion is a
very powerful tool, in its technical capabilities as well as its impact on
allowing communities to control and design their own communication
infrastructure. The Commotion community is also very supportive, and being
a part of it has led to many opportunities Red Hook WIFI would not have had
otherwise.
But if you do not have an experienced network engineer/backend coder, then
Commotion can be very challenging to work with. Having recently switched to
the stock software of AirOs and Unifi, our system admin in training is much
better able to setup, diagnose and fix issues within the network. I am able
to get much more useful data about our network and its users, and able to
see the health of the network in a snapshot.
One final note, the Commotion curriculum is very useful in the beginning
stages of building a network. The lessons taught in that curriculum are
extremely useful no matter what gear or software a group is using.
tony

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 11:12 AM, Josh King <jking at opentechinstitute.org>
wrote:

> Hi Francis,
>
> At least for mesh networks like Commotion, any network traffic
> pertaining to mesh routing happens at the IP layer or above. Most of the
> tips in that document relate to segmenting the network at the radio
> level to reduce interference, but IP traffic would continue to be
> propagated seamlessly across the whole network. So this is just a
> strategy for reducing interference, and as far as the mesh routing and
> IP addressing is concerned this is still a single network. A note: this
> may be different for mesh networking implementations like batman-adv or
> 802.11s, which operate closer to the radio layer.
>
> Broadly, these are largely strategies trying to mitigate the
> shortcomings in wifi, not in mesh networks specifically. Similar issues
> are going to crop up when building infrastructure using wifi, regardless
> of whether you're using Commotion, Ubiquiti's stock firmware, or some
> other software. Building large and complicated wireless networks is
> always going to take thought and consideration, and mesh networking
> isn't a magic bullet for that. But I do think it's a useful tool, in
> that it can allow networks to be smarter and do a lot of complicated
> configuration themselves, thus putting the construction of complex
> networks within the reach of more people and communities. It's up to
> those people and communities to decide whether or not it's one of the
> tools they want to use.
>
> On 04/09/2015 07:41 PM, Francis X. Gentile wrote:
> >
> > https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/networking/guidelines-for-mesh/
> >
> > so if you are walking or driving from on smaller mesh another, on
> > separate channels, whose smaller meshes are connected by a long distance
> > backbone which uses the Ubiquiti software (which has the channel hopping
> > for 5ghz to access more channels, and the weak strong signal unbiased
> > allocation).....
> >
> > how does the mesh retain its identity and server access across a
> > different network (and thus ip address protocol) does the mesh software
> > put itself in an envelope and pass along the alien network to stay
> > cohesive at both ends?
> >
> > Or is the wide area mesh system abandoned , and the only remaining use
> > for mesh is for at the fringes of reception from the back bone for
> > another hop or two,
> >
> > but using the unbiased weak strong signal allocation of the Ubiquity
> > system, a longer distance 2 ghz router could be an access point for
> > longer distances anyway?
> >
> > If every user in the mesh is say, a fire truck among many traveling, or
> > a bunch of RVs, or a climbing expedition, or driving mob of vehicles
> > going to burning man, it this the only place mesh ad hoc mobile networks
> > are really needed?  is a headless self reconfiguring network on one
> > channel necessary?
> >
> > so is the deployment of non monopolisitic corporate local intranet or
> > internet access being delayed by pointless machinations about mesh
> > networking when you could just as well deploy stock wireless internet
> > service provider equipment from Ubiquity et al?
> >
> >
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________
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>
> --
> Josh King
> Lead Technologist
> The Open Technology Institute
> http://opentechinstitute.org
> PGP Fingerprint: 8269 ED6F EA3B 7D78 F074 1E99 2FDA 4DA1 69AE 4999
>
>
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>


-- 

*Anthony SchlossDirector of Community Initiatives*
www.rhicenter.org
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