Mesh still coming?

Hi is a stable mesh option coming with PB 1.0?

Hi,
not within 1.0 , for that I have to change too much and we are too close at PirateBox 1.0 release.

Currently I'm developing the stuff for LibraryBox as an request out of the Kickstarter success.
After I've done with that, I'm going to merge it back to PirateBox.

But anyway: What is your intention of the "mesh" topic? Synchronize? Collect everything from known boxes? Enable the Network-Infrastrukture for other things? Accessing other boxes from the mesh?

Sorry, that I always have to ask this questions.. but it is quite important to me what are the ideas behind people asking about mesh.

Matthias

To be honest, I see PirateBox and other variations as a so called "weapon" of sorts against legislation restricting internet content, free speech and privacy.
In the grand picture, with mesh feature, i see PB as an important element in decentralization.

Although, there is already mesh networks started, I believe PB appeals to the masses better simply because it is relatively easy to install for non-tech savvy individuals, its cost effective, provides anonymity and for me personally with the help from yourself and how-to's from other members of the community it gave me a sort of "project" which lead me to get more interested in learning about coding, Linux, as well as networking and i believe it can do the same for other people.

But to give you a short answer--
1.I would like to connect to other PBs in my area

2.I believe with the mesh feature it will boost the popularity of the PirateBox project. I see it sort of like when the first telephone was invented, nobody would really be interested in owning a telephone if there was no others around who owned one. ( but then again by that logic i guess the same could be said for not adding the mesh feature at this point lol)

What I'd like to see the mesh doing is to enable one box to be able to connect to another distant box by jumping to nearer boxes in between. Pretty much like how the current wired infrastructure works I guess. I'm sure different content will be hosted on different boxes and syncing them all so as every box has everything is just not realistic. Using boxes as gateways to get to a specific box with specific content seems more doable, at least I hope so. Of course, this also means that there would have to overlapping signals from many different boxes. I think that if the meshing capabilities were there, people might be more apt to see the potential of this kind of network. Basically, every box owner would be a host and part of the infrastructure of the entire meshnet. Granted, this would/could work really well in places with high density populations and not so much so where there isn't but that could be remedied by a few people acting as gateways to the established wired net.

Hi,
The most important mesh feature for my purpose would be to provide the services currently available between mesh nodes. It seems like file sync and message board sync would be relatively symple and chat sync would probably be the trickiest since it is a real-time service. Allow people connected to different PirateBoxes to communicate and share as though they were on one single box would be great, though.

We're going to be demoing and testing mesh at PirateBox Camp next month in Lille, France (July 12-13). Join us there if you can. Otherwise, stay tuned to the website for more info...we'll be asking for testers and are aiming to release mesh in our next release...

Will there be any video streams of the event? Would be cool to see an introduction to the testing or something along those lines!

Hi,
I assume we won't have a stream, but we will maybe create a video of this.

Matthias

@nodeswitch there is no streaming for the moment. But we will see if we could do something (perhaps capture the Mesh part ?). Follow the [twitter.com] account we will let you know

Will do. Thanks, Ben.

Really good Stuff.

Hi,

Im quite interested on the mesh feature for the piratebox as I had done several experiments with batman-adv.

For what I understand the idea is to use a mesh network instead of a normal AP? or would it be an AP for all devices and another one for the mesh?

Also, about the files, for what I understood the idea is to replicate the files in all pirateboxes? I think for that Alfred from the guys of open-mesh will do the trick, you can get the piratebox to generate an xml with the files it has and distribute it to the rest of the piratebox, then you can add a new tab like "network files" that would allow you to download from the node that have the file saving space but hurting the avaliability of the files I know hehe

In case that the mesh goes forward it will be also interesting to set "jump" nodes, as I dont have the economy to get new hardware I have been using my old foneras so far for my mesh test but running piratebox would be a no as most doesnt have an usb (actually I couldn't even get it to work in a fonera 2.0 witha 16Gb pen). This "jump" nodes would just connect actual pirateboxes that in any other case would not see each other, so far they shouldn't need any special configuration, just the same compatibility version of the batman-adv module and the essid&channel configuration. They dont even need to run piratebox but a quick script could make things easier for those who dont know how to add their nodes to the mesh.

Not sure how the progress of this is going but I will be glad to help and provide my little experience with mesh networks if needed

Best regards!

@kalrong > are you from paris? I saw a group of hackers in paris Sorbonne come together to develop this protocol on PirateBox. in 2011/2012

Piratebox: version 1.0 => TpLink WR703N vers 1.6 / RaspberryPi [BZH, Fr]

Hi yaloteng0,

Nop Im from Spain hehe as you are by your nick right? hehe

Hi guys,
sorry for not coming back to this thread so long.
I wanted to take enough time for posting an appropriate answer.

First of all: Did you read my small (little bit outdated) article: [piratebox.aod-rpg.de]
I really have to refresh that page.

The current status is the following (based upon development branch of PirateBoxScripts_Webserver and mkPirateBox-Mesh):

* Fully IPv6 network, where clients can reach each other using their IPv6 IP
* Reaching an remote Box(Local PirateBox is the Box' wifi you are connected in) across the Mesh works, if you know the ipv6 IP
* IPv4 addresses are filterted across the Mesh
* avahi Nameservice is configured
* The mkPirateBox-Mesh script is prepared in a way, that a single Box can act as an relay only

Currently you:
* Don't have an easy Link-List on the website, where you can easily access remote PirateBox
* don't have a working Name-Resolution of remote PirateBox
* will recognize that Forban is now completly Broken and incompatible with PirateBox 1.0
* Upload only works against the local Box, because of that iFrame.
* will see the global shoutbox workin unreliable maybe... still experimental.

On the PirateBox Camp, we discovered a bug about the IPv4 network and one guy fixed that. The audience was able to play around with a paper list of the connected boxes to visit them across the mesh network.

The next steps are:
* Makeing a non-iframe upload possibility to enable remote Uploads
* Making a regular generated hosts file for creating a "hacked" nameresolution: I already started with a script for that here: [github.com]
* Create a nice JS-box that reads a prepared file for giving a list of available boxes (with content).
* Make Forban work again,
* or use an alternative method like rsync. (Maybe better b/c of limitation of user&speed)
* alot of testing


regards Matthias

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2014 04:32PM by Matthias.

Dont be sorry thats quite an answer, really appreciate it!

I will need to check futher on the git repo and I will try to make the piratebox in my mesh lab (probably not as I only have foneras at the moment and they dont have usb ).

About list of mesh nodes to generate a link-list you can send a message to the network using alfred and the nodes will reply with their ipv5/6 ip, name, etc, etc

Im not really an expert but have worked quite a lot with batman-adv (half my wireless network at home is a mesh usign catwoman hehe) so I will be glad to help as much as I can in whatever may be needed, just tell me and I work on it

Speaking on catwoman, to improve speed between nodes and probably on uploading to a remote node wouldnt it be a good option?

As far as I found the correct alfread, it is mac only and uses the bonjour protocol.

bonjour/avahi services are installed, we only need to do some clever generation of a useful list.

what is catwoman? Link?

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Alfred (http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki/Alfred) for what I understand uses ipv6 for the broadcast. Good thing is that it can be used to avoid ip collision for example asking the mesh for the ip's that are already in use. Once the piratebox have an unique ip inside the mesh it can be used to do a broadcast that can contain its ip and the list of files or only the ip and the name of the mesh and then the other piratebox inside the mesh could just connect to it and download the file list but this may cause the AP to overload with too many conections so I think broadcasting once the full list and then having each node download it will be the best option.

C.A.T.W.O.M.A.N. basically is a implementation of network coding using batman-adv. Here you have the doc for network coding in open-mesh (http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/NetworkCoding-technical), also a more resumed explanation (http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/NetworkCoding). Basically it "merges" packets so instead of transmitting two it only sends one but bigger, this needs a little increase of the MTU as the packets are bigger.

thanks for the links. I have to have a closer look at some time.

I updated my documentation about the mesh stuff here: [piratebox.aod-rpg.de]

Matthias

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Took me a year but finally I got my hands in a proper MR3020(15 euros brand new in a shopping center), bye bye foneras hehe

Is the idea of the mesh still on going? Now that I have a proper devices for tests i would like to collaborate if possible.

Hi,
you can test it on our weekly-development built. I wrote an introduction how to use it here.

It is still not in the shape I like it to be, but anyway. Technically, tha batman-adv meshing with dynamic ipv6 stuff is working.

Matthias

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