[Commotion-discuss] Trying to build a mesh in Italy: first questions

Andy Gunn andygunn at opentechinstitute.org
Wed May 13 11:01:37 EDT 2015


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Hi Mario - I have a few thoughts below, in-line with your questions.

On 05/12/2015 11:13 AM, Mario Giammarco wrote:
> Hello, just a quick introduction: I am trying to use mesh
> technologies to win digital divide in Italy. I am planning a "self
> sutstaining" network where people and enterprise will buy mesh
> nodes to receive several services and so they will indirectly make
> the mesh bigger. Eventually I will describe the "marketing"
> strategies I am choosing. I have first two technical questions:
> 
> 1) How can I monitor nodes from outside the mesh? Can I also change
> all node parameters (e.g. modifying wpa password to all nodes) with
> a centralized management tool?

A few things on this. Right now, it isn't possible to change a setting
across the entire network at once - such as changing the WPA password
on all the Access Points. This was the trade off of making Commotion
nodes more autonomous - people can set up their nodes and connect to a
mesh and only share what they want, etc.

For monitoring, there isn't anything built-in to Commotion right now.
You can install collectd or snmpd packages on the nodes using the
normal software package installation pages (Advanced -> System ->
Software, then update the package list and search for the monitoring
packages you want to install). You will need to run a monitoring
server such as Zabbix, Cacti, Nagios, or others. The setup for these
servers is complicated, and a bit beyond the scope of our
documentation currently (though I hope to have something more someday).

We have a basic Zabbix setup guide here:
https://wiki.commotionwireless.net/doku.php/general_resources/documentat
ion/monitoring/zabbix
But some parts of it may be out of date. I'm not an expert on the
setup, unfortunately.

Commotion is currently working with wlan-Slovenija to integrate with
their dashboard and map:
https://wlan-si.net/en/map/
It will be possible to set up your own local or hosted dashboard
server using this system - but I will let other folks talk about that
platform, and when it will be available for use with Commotion.

Other folks on the list may have other thoughts on monitoring solutions!

> 2) In some use cases I need a level 2 mesh so I can pass dhcp to a 
> subset of nodes. Is there a pratical way to do this with commotion 
> wireless? I am thinking to put an "ether over ip" vpn on each node
> that communicates with a (mikrotik) gateway that is also dhcp
> server

Commotion uses OLSR for creating a level 3 network layer mesh - but
you can also mesh over Ethernet (or a point-to-point wireless bridge,
or whatever) between nodes, as shown here:
https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/installing-configuring/advanced-h
ardware-setups/

It should be possible to just pass DHCP to a subset of nodes through a
standard point-to-multipoint network, if that would work...

Each Commotion node assigns IP addresses to the attached clients
(whether on the Access Point or LAN) via DHCP. If you want to allocate
IPs to segments of the mesh clients from a central DHCP server, I'm
not sure how (or if) that can be set up with Commotion...

> Can you give me some suggestions?
> 
> Thank you very much in advance, Mario

Hopefully this gets things started, thanks Mario.
- -Andy


- -- 
Andy Gunn, Field Engineer
Open Technology Institute, New America
andygunn at opentechinstitute.org | 202-596-3484
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