New Release with "Mesh"-feature - Tester needed

Matthias:

Long time no chat! I see you've made quite some progress on this!

I have as well, and I hope that my input may prove valuable!

Of course, as always, I run nothing but Linux, so I generally run an external dumb wireless bridge / AP or second wlanX on my PB's to accomodate for other OS's that aren't BATMAN-ADV compatible (Windows, Android, etc...). I also have added VoIP via Yate, PTT walkie-talkie server, and a few other things, and it's all in the following scripts!

[paste.ubuntu.com] - init.d/piratebox
[paste.ubuntu.com] - conf/piratebox.conf
[paste.ubuntu.com] - bin/piratebox_setup_lan.sh
[paste.ubuntu.com] - bin/piratebox_setup_mesh.sh

Hope these might be helpful, and I look forward to your input!

edit: I might add, I run tincd vpn over the meshX iface as well, which is a mesh-friendly and decentralized VPN, with quick easy enrollment. Adds to the privacy, and it's cross-platform...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2013 06:44AM by tekoholic.

Thanks for this stuff!!!
The only tear about it it: It works on the old Python-Webserver-based PirateBox Script-collection

The currently one is with lighttpd - did you see that? It already works (most times) on my debian laptop, but haven't time to check it in detail and push up a new version on piratebox.aod-rpg.de

Matthias

edit: Did you see my [github.com] repository about this? It contains a laptop version for this, too. You can create a configuration in the shellscript to do all the stuff you made in the setup_mesh script.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2013 02:08PM by Matthias.

Had not seen the github, headed there now.

Had seen info on the lighttpd-based versions, but it had appeared to me that they were built for routers only, so I went with what I had.

I'll let ya' know how it goes!

edit: In the readme, it appears that you may be using the in-kernel batman-adv modules (not sure which kernel version)... You might consider the VERY easy installation of the newest modules for the debian scripts (kernel's way behind...), at [www.open-mesh.org]. More stable, in as well as new (and very useful) features and such...

It's a quick tar zxvf *.tar.gz, and make && make install in each directory.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2013 03:34PM by tekoholic.

*bump* & *update*

global shoutbox deployed (activate via piratebox.conf & reboot)
Forban link included.
Correct package dependencies for piratebox-mesh & MAC Fix

Matthias,

I'm trying to raise funds right now, via kickstarter, to build a massive (40-50 node) mesh piratebox network at Burning Man this year. My idea is to build the boxes with solar panels to keep them powered, and cover the entire event with the networked boxes. Is this something you might want to help with on the technical side? I obviously am going to have to wait and see how the kickstarter goes to see how much money I can get which will determine the size of the network but I'm hoping for at LEAST 30 nodes involved. Are you familiar with Burning Man event?

Let me know if this is something you'd be interested in, you might even be able to get an Artist pass for the event and come for free.

If you'd rather, we can talk about this by email. My email address is stopitscurvy AT gmail DOT com

wow this is a hughe size.
No, I'm not familiar with "Burning man", I just read a few lines on the webpage. A size of 30 nodes is an amazing size for every mesh fanboy

I'm not sure what you want to achieve with that much boxes... but I'll write you an email for clarification.

Matthias

I have been going to Burning Man and smaller Burning Man related events for 10 years and I can say that a giant mesh network would be AWESOME at Burning Man. It is the perfect environment and culture to adopt and use such a thing. The idea really excites me. Scurvy, I am going to email you also as I am going this year and would love to help make this happen!

Matthias - what would excite you is that Burning Man is about 50,000 people, with a TON of artists, intellectuals and creative people among the 50,000. The event is held in a remote desert, so NO Internet access. However, among the guiding principles and philosophy of the event is to experiment with local community structures and build local relationships. Having our own network to share stories, photos, videos and files among the other 50,000 people would fit right in with the overarching philosophy. It's really a perfect marriage.

Also, even at retail pricing, thirty 3020 routers are just over $1000 which, knowing the community, can probably be raised pretty easily.

*update*
new beta package version 0.6.2

What would be awesome would be somehow track movement of the pirateboxes that aren't in a fixed location (mounted on art cars, etc) and the affect on the mesh. like some crazy graphical look at the evolving mesh and performance between nodes.

Hello,

I finally managed to install the mesh feature with all the latest packages, but after rebooting the box (tp_link mr3020), the box doesn't give me an IP adress threw wifi, as if the dhcp wasn't working.

I already encoutered this pb with the classical PirateBox package, sorry to give so few informations

log of the install : [paste.ubuntu.com]

did anyone encoutered the same pb ?
is there any way to re-activate logs to know what's happening ?
do I have to stay on 192.168.1.1 IP adress ?

++Benjamin

At first, thank you for your ouput!

Please set your client to a static ip like 192.168.1.2 and try to connect via telnet/passwd and give me the result of this list of commands: [github.com]

thank you

Hello Matthias,

I can connect to the TP-link mr3020 connecting it to my local network (10.0.0.) with ssh
btw, when I connect the tp-link to my local network and when I try to connect to it threw wifi, I got an IP adress with the dhcp server of my local network (10.0.0.) (my computer is not connected to the network with a cable at this moment), the router is acting like a bridge for dhcp.

Results of the commands : [paste.ubuntu.com]

all the lines of the dmesg : [paste.ubuntu.com]

once again thank you !
++Benjamin

Quote

the router is acting like a bridge for dhcp.

This is correct and wished- Why? Per default Wifi - wired lan is bridged and since 0.5 the DHCP is not running in "hey you, now I'm the man in the middle and you all now take my IP address" anymore... this is to "save" your local network.
So you have to disconnect your wired to your local lan to get an IP of your router.

For sure you can change the IP of your box, but it is not only done with changing config/network , you have to change /opt/piratebox/conf/piratebox.conf too -- see [piratebox.aod-rpg.de]

I assume you changed config/network and did not changed piratebox.conf - correct?

Does this help?

Matthias

edit: the problem with your home-net is, that it confilcts with meshs I'P . But you can disable the behavior and force the box to give IPs ( see opt/piratebox/conf/dnsmasq_default.conf and remove the # in front of #dhcp-authoritative )



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2013 06:10AM by Matthias.

Hello,

I changed the /opt/piratebox/conf/piratebox.conf and opt/piratebox/conf/dnsmasq_default.conf as mentionned and it worked !

btw, the dhcp server on my local network gives ip > 10.0.0.100

Now, I've 2 more Tp-link to install, I'll let you know if everything works

+++thanks
Benjamin

I am running a couple of MR3020 and they are connecting to each other and I can use Forban to retrieve each other's files. I can't get them to pass the chat to each other though. Is this implemented yet? Thanks

Cancel that. I think it's working now.

Now it is not working, for sure. I have confirmed by manually going to [ip.addr.1] and [ip.addr.2] (global chat does not sync) [ip.addr.1], [ip.addr.2] to verify i'm accessing each box separately.


Also, is it possible to install the imageboard in the meshing verison? I don't expect the boards to sync (but that would be cool).

You are able to install imageboard on one or both box(es), and no the boxes don't sync the imageboard (sorry )

About the shoutbox issue: did you enable it in piratebox.conf ?

I thought the global chat was on by default. I switched it on and it worked fine.

I reflashed to install the imageboard, I followed the instructions but when I install the new .ipk it changes my network/firewall settings so this won't work:
root@OpenWrt:/tmp# /opt/piratebox/bin/install_piratebox.sh /opt/piratebox/conf/piratebox.conf imageboard
Downloading [stable.openwrt.piratebox.de].
(hangs here)

Thanks for the help!

The new package is? 0.6.2 ?
Maybe the fix for the dns-problems alot of people encounter, because of not setting the network config correctly, interfere with that.

edit:
if yes, run the command

/opt/piratebox/init.d/piratebox nodns

in front of the command for installing the imageboard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2013 07:58PM by Matthias.

I am using the new package 0.6.2. I checked for a reply while I was reflashing. I did as you suggested. It seemed to work, it gave some storage errors similar to:

Collected errors:
* parse_from_stream_nomalloc: Missing new line character at end of file!
* opkg_conf_write_status_files: Can't open status file //usr/lib/opkg/status: No space left on device.
ln: /usr/bin/perl: No space left on device
ln: /usr/lib/perl5: No space left on device

I figured that was because of the path //usr ..

Towards the end of the script I received chown errors and I can't remember if that is normal.

chown: /opt/piratebox/share/board/templates.pl: Operation not permitted
chown: /opt/piratebox/share/board/zeroconv.pl: Operation not permitted
chown: /opt/piratebox/share/board: Operation not permitted
chown: /opt/piratebox/share/board: Operation not permitted

..etc.

Now when I connect to the Piratebox and try to access the imageboard, I see a list of the files it extracted, but no index.html?

Did I run out of space on the internal memory or did something go wrong with the script?

Thanks.

BTW, I saw this post

Language: PHP
You should point to the browser. But if it won';t work, remove the index.html file 
Language: PHP rm  /opt/piratebox/www/board/index.html
 
Then point in the browser again to 
 
Language: PHP http://www.piratebay.se/board/kareha.pl
 
This will hopefully regenerate the index.html file.

I tried that and it returns "500 - Internal Server Error".

Thanks.

Whoohoo! I got it!

After going through some old posts I changed my piratebox.conf DROOPY_USE_USER="no" to "yes", the the imageboard install script ran without error.

On another note, i shouldn't need the imageboard to sync. I'll just install it on one and link to it from the others. Thanks for the help!

Well, the chown errors appears because you run on FAT filesystem, where you are not able to change ownership. (and is written on the screen, that the chown errors are ok)

The -no space left- is a known problem. All packages together take too much room on router's space ; and there is no direct solution for this :/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2013 05:55AM by Matthias.

Just a little thing, on the new release 0.6.3 I have a probleme, when both of my MR3020 are turned on, I can connect to each box separately but there isn't any link to forban...

Does this problem still exists after the first reboot?

Strange...

Unfortunetly yes

Can you check if /etc/forban.common contains the following lines:

####Vars for setup piratebox stuff
src_piratebox_forban_nolink=/opt/piratebox/src/no_link.html
src_piratebox_forban_link=/opt/piratebox/src/forban.html
dest_piratebox_www=/opt/piratebox/www/forban_link.html

this and those lines located at the start-section

[ -f $src_piratebox_forban_link ] && \
cp $src_piratebox_forban_link $dest_piratebox_www


responsible for copy over that stuff

The file doesn't contain those lines, at the starte there is only this:
/etc/piratebox.common

forban_mount="/opt/forban"
forban_srcImg_url="[piratebox.aod-rpg.de];
forban_img="$pb_usbdir/forbanIMG.img"
forban_srcimg="$pb_usbmount/forban_img.tar.gz"
forban_share="$pb_share"
forban_share_folder="$forban_mount/var/share"

#Empty out Forban's cache about found hosts
forban_reset_loot="no"

#Resets PIDs
forban_clean_up="yes"

oh crap.

Sorry. I just found the problem:
The status on github containt that version with the link, but my machine for building sources & preparing stuff did not.. I'll repackage the stuff and upload a new forban package.

Thanks for that problem report!!!!


edit:

---

Would you please try this package:

Language: PHP
opkg install http://piratebox.aod-rpg.de/piratebox-forban_0.34.3_all.ipk

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2013 02:51PM by Matthias.