[CUWiN] N00b Question

[David Young]

On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 01:19:57PM -0500, Jef Green wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> My name if Jef, and I am working with onShore Networks and the local
> West Town Chamber of Commerce to provide a free community wireless
> internet service to Chicago Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.  I have two
> Soekris kits here with CuWin/NetBSD installed.  Everything is running
> fine, but I have a few technical questions.  If this is the wrong list
> to post such questions, please cut me off short here.
>
> The main thing I want to get sorted out is how to manually manage mesh
> connections from node to node.  Mainly I've had problems with other
> (brand name) nodes in the past allowing too many hops in a situation
> where a hop could be avoided - i.e. a node could have associated
> with a node closer to the root (core) node, but chose not to do so.
> I'd like to know the best way of handling this manually when need be.
> Blocking the node's MAC from associating through an ACL would be my
> first guess, but not quite sure how to implement this.  I'm a bit more
> familiar with Debian and the like-Linux variety, and not-so familiar
> with wireless mesh networking within Linux.  So between that, NetBSD
> and hsls/zebra/CuWin, etc. - I'm a little lost.  Perhaps there is an
> easy method that I'm missing, or whatnot.  The CuWin release we're
> using here has a broken web management interface - FYI.
>
> I have a few other technical things I need to get worked out, but
> I'll wait for the response to this question.  Any help is greatly
> appreciated.

Jef,

This is the right list to ask questions.

You can use the PF packet filter to block routing packets from a
particular IP source address.  See NetBSD manual pages pfctl(8), pf(4).
The routing packets are UDP packets sent to destination port 9191 with
a source address in the 169.254/16 range.  If you block routing packets
from host X at host Y, then a link X->Y will not form.

I urge you to rely on HSLS to choose routes for you.  Sometimes HSLS will
make a choice that looks "wrong" to you and I.  The reason may be that
our hunch about the best route is wrong.  There may be a bug in HSLS.
Or our routing metric may be performing badly---we expect this sometimes.
Papering over problems by using the packet filter may sometimes work as
a stopgap, however, you will have better luck if CUWiN finds and fixes
the root problem.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933 ext 24