Mesh Testers Volunteers (Whihax)

Hello Matthias:

At this link: [piratebox.aod-rpg.de] the first page that you put doesn't work concrently (http://piratebox.aod-rpg.de/mesh_test/)

We need this files:

piratebox-mesh_0.2.8_all.ipk
piratebox-forban_0.34.2_all.ipk

This files there are not availables in the official repository for model mr3020.

We need this files for testing mesh with my friend as soon as posible

And another question

Can you explain the steps for installing forban and also enable and connect mesh?

Hi Andros,
thank you for your interest in the mesh topic.

The notepad you found is a very old one, which I'll delete in a second.
As you might guess, the mesh stuff is included in a first version into the PirateBox Scripts, which you can test with our latest development snapshot.
You can find information about that snapshot here and on the 2nd Post you see the information about the mesh feature (you need to know).


About the Forban thing. Unfortunately, the package you found is not supported by PirateBox anymore. The reason is, that we did a big change which broke the support. (We aligned the packages to the standard OpenWrt package format).

Last year, I had some freetime, which I used to test Forban in a special setup. Unfortunately, it seems that the current version of it doesn't work well with our mesh configuration. But you can feel free to try it for yourself

You find the source-code of the Forban package here.

best regards Matthias

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Did you see my mesh introduction too ?

regards Matthias

Hi again Matthias!

First of all, thank you very much for your support and attendance.

We have some questions:

1. Do we need to use the development image piratebox_ws_1.1_img.tar.gz and do we have to recompile the installation snapshot. (I tried to put it in the regular instalation folder piratebox/install/ renaming it to piratebox_ws_1.0_img.tar.gz and the process completed but mesh doesn't work nor the piratebox chat, forum and files appeared)

2. Is it needed to use PirateBoxScripts with Modifications for running in a Webserver for completing the installation or something?

3. We enabled piratebox mesh with the normal distribution and we were able to se PB-Mesh ant even tried to connect but it never get connected. Is it because of package collition with the mr3020 or just it's not working thes way? or it is because is necesary active ipv6 in our devices, in this case what is necesary?

Hi,
thank you again for the interest in testing this topic.

The development version of PirateBox is labled as 1.1 because it is meant to be like the new release- this includes the new Uploader-Script too ; so you are testing the bleeding edge.

To get the development version running you need

* the new firmware image
* Install zip file

Those two bundles contain everything needed. You find it in the subfolder target_piratebox.

After you acquired those files, you can follow the normal upgrade-piratebox instructions.

The file you exchanged is the content of /opt/piratebox , but as you already noticed - that would not work because of missing packages and whatever.

You can't raize a 1.0 Box to a 1.0-mesh-enabled box, because there are packets missing you need for filtering ipv4 packets on the mesh interface. In addition, yes you need a different IPv6 setup.

best regards Matthias

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Hello again Matthias:

We have both of the MR3020 flashed and installed with the developer firmware and install.zip, we used the new Upload features and everything works fine. We tried the batctl o and avahi-browser checks and it seems the mesh is online but we cant make both boxes to connect. As we can see it requires one box like hoste and another like client with the 3020 but we don't know how to configure the IPv6 and the SSID to make it works. Our question is which files we have to edit and what do we have to add to the fields.

We tried to add the ipv6 and ID of one box in /opt/piratebox/conf/hosts_generated but still nothing... if you have some time please help us to achieve the connection.

thank you very much for your patience and attention.

We hope test it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2015 01:33PM by Andros.

Hi Andros,

I just looked up in the source to verify some of my assumptions.

1. radvd together with IPv6 on the machine is enable if you use a image that contains the mesh package (it is)
2. if you enabled & started the mesh function on both boxes, after around 5-10 seconds, the "batctl o" command should list one line
3. Avahi should be enabled and running, because it is detected during installation as "available" and configured.
4. The configuration of the host names into the hosts file, is the right step. to make dns names working.
edit: if you want to add custom urls to any file, the right place for that would be /opt/piratebox/conf/hosts - remember, you need to refresh your dnsmasq, that the changes are recognized. As the following post explains, there is a script, that should do some automatic translation - if correctly configured.

Remember, the correct notation of IPv6-URLs is

Language: PHP
http://[<ipv6>]

edit: if you don't enter the IPv6 URL with the [ ] , the ip is not correctly configured.

If your other box was detected, you should see some output on avahi-browse. The key is, that you need to refresh dnsmasq after you added the hostname to the hosts file. Without that refresh it doesn't work.
I created a script that:
* Asks avahi for know hosts
* Does a translation of the hostnames
* creates a new mesh_hosts file
* refreshes dnsmasq
* wait & start again

This script is

/opt/pirateox/bin/avahi_to_sdns.sh

It stays in the foreground. So if you want to simply start and background it run:

start-stop-daemon -S -b /opt/pirateox/bin/avahi_to_sdns.sh

Unfortunately, it is currently not integrated to the startup of the box.
The gold feature is to add it to your bootup. For this, we have some empty shell scripts, that a processed during startup for your custom code.
For this modification, you should add it in front of the "exit" to

/opt/piratebox/bin/hooks/hook_piratebox_start_done.sh

Keep in mind, you need to enter the full hostname in your browser like

Language: PHP
http://<randomprefix>.piratebox.lan

The DNS name will be available after around 5-10 Minutes. You can change this intervall in avahi_to_sdns.sh to something shorter, if you want to.

if you still have issues, I would like to get the commands from the Troubleshooting->openWrt->technical questions
and

batclt o
avahi-browse -p -r -t 
ifconfig
/etc/init.d/mesh enabled && echo "Mesh enabled"

Hope that helps
best regards Matthias

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2015 05:47PM by Matthias.

did you got it working?
any results? or feedback?

Sorry about the delay. Nope it didn't work but we still want to try again and make it works.
I activated mesh (start/enable), rebooted and did the batctl and it was able to see the other router but how to connect to the other pirate... Just tried by the code infront of root@ by ssh because as I can see this is the identification of every pirate.

Btw do I have to add the IPv6 at any file? I tried adding it at the /opt/piratebox/conf/ hosts_generated below the Master Box but didn't work.

We did it like this:
1) /etc/init.d/mesh start
2) /etc/init.d/mesh enabled
3) batctl -o
4) Try to connect by browser Firefox vtwMkxLU.piratebox.lan
5) Try again with http:// xxxx:yyyy:zzzz:iiii:jjjj:kkkk (IPv6)
6) Reboot
7) Try again 4) & 5)
8) vi /opt/piratebox/conf/hosts_generated
adding the IPv6 and identification of the Secondary Pirate below the Master's Pirate IPv6
9) Tried from 1) to 6) and nothing again.

May be we are doing something wrong, if you can help it would be cool because we are wanting to try the mesh from the begining xD and we still want to do it.

And as I see you already watched the conference we did and the people was asking if there is danger in the Mesh Network if your data is transfered by the rest of the clients, like if somebody do a spoofing atack or start a sniffer or if some mesh node has a trojan in it's content. We told the comunication is secure enough as we beleve and that there is an antivirus ipk.

My question related to this topic is what encryption is used in the communication of the BATMAN (which is the protocol of transfer as I understand?) and Is the antivirus ClamAv available for the MR3020?

Thanks

Thanks for your reply.

1. On the mesh layer there is no encryption currently. Unfortunately. The there is an additional protocol header for the mesh stuff over the air- that's it.
I already thought about using cjdns as mesh protocol (which would be encrypted), but I wen away from that idea because of a few reasons:
# cjdns does not support broadcast, which PirateBox uses to resolve other boxes nearby
# cjdns is in a early stage - I'm not sure how the compatible these are to each other
# in Terms of mesh stability + reliability: BATMAN-adv. is well proven on a wide field (by FreiFunk), cjdns is not that old.

2. About the other questions. I want to point you to my longer post above- I added a few lines to make things clearer.

3. No anti virus possible- maybe there are packages, but you won't be able to keep your anti virus database up to date. Trust a PirateBox like you would trust the internet.

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