Freifunkblog

The Ninux.org team announced the first “Ninux Day”, a weekend with about and for wireless communities. You will meet software and hardware hackers, geeks, nerds, engineers, artists, the curious and academics. Experts from all over Europe offer technical and social presentations in the area of wireless community networks.

Join the Ninux Days in Rome, Italy, from November 27-29, 2009.

More Info here:

* http://wiki.ninux.org/NinuxDay2009
* http://wiki.ninux.org/NinuxDay2009en (English)
* http://wiki.ninux.org/NinuxDay2009it (Italian)
* Announcement: http://blog.ninux.org/2009/09/03/ninux-day-2009
* Ninux Blog http://blog.ninux.org

[via ZioPRoTo]

The summer of code project of Steven Barth aka Cyrus is about planning and implementing an IPv6 and TLS capable superserver in Lua as well as an HTTP/1.1-Server working on top of it using the LuCI HTTP-Stack. This application will serve LuCI - the Freifunk Firmware web user interface - and replace the currently used slower CGI-solution without IPv6 and encryption support. Additionally an RPC-Server will be built to allow remote administration of one or more OpenWrt devices in a standardized way using JSON-RPC over TCP.

The results of the summer work of Cyrus is pretty overwhelming. There is for example nixio, the new POSIX Lua library which will help us getting rid of the Lua 3rd party library mess. And based on that there is also LuCId - which was described in the GSoC project. It brings us a new efficient HTTP-server. Some people may have discovered that Cyrus already checked in things into trunk ocassionally. Also SSL support is working. Another nice new feature is native support for creating wizards which will be used in the near future. The results of LuCId are already being tested in productive environments. They are performing well. Kernel mode IO and TLS encryption function well. Special thanks for the achievements also go to John Crispin aka BLogic who is the mentor of Steve during the summer.

Links

• Project-Homepage: luci.freifunk-halle.net
• Translation Portal: i18n.luci.subsignal.org
• API-Documentation: Luci-Doc
• Development Progress: Trac-Timeline
• Bugs and Features: Tickets
• John Crispin aka BLogic (mentor)

Thank you to all applicants for the Freifunk Summer of Code project and congratulations to the accepted students! All together there were 49 applications for Freifunk. We could accept 10 students. They are currently updating their project proposals. I will present them here soon. We invite the students and anyone else to our Wireless Community Weekend at the end of May. More info coming out soon. Good luck for your summer of code projects For everyone who did not get in or people who did not apply, we welcome every contributor and user of the freifunk software tools and are looking forward to your involvement outside the Summer of Code.

I applied for the Google Summer of Code for Freifunk again this year and we got in :-) Please check the info page on the summer of code page for Freifunk here: http://socghop.appspot.com/org/show/google/gsoc2009/ffopenwrt . Applications need to be submitted via the Google Summer of Code website.

Discuss your ideas for development on the IRC channels of Freifunk and OpenWrt here:
irc.fu-berlin.de #freifunk
irc.freenode.net #openwrt 

We have set up a wiki page for ideas. Please add your idea here:
http://wiki.freifunk.net/Ideas

Some frequently asked questions from the Summer of Code FAQ

How does a student apply?
Students can submit their applications via the Google Summer of Code 2009 site from March 23 - April 3, 2009. ... make sure to check out each organization's "Ideas" list to get to know a particular open source organization better.  

What should a student application look like?
Your application should include the following: your project proposal, why you'd like to execute on this particular project, and the reason you're the best individual to do so. Your proposal should also include details of your academic, industry, and/or open source development experience, and other details as you see fit. An explanation of your development methodology is a good idea, as well. If the organization you want to work with has a specific application template they would like you to use, it will be made available to you to fill in when submitting your proposal via the GSoC web app.   

Can a student submit more than one application?
Yes, each student may submit up to twenty applications. However, only one application will be accepted. We've heard from our mentoring organizations that quality is better than quantity.   

Can students already working on an open source project continue to work on it as part of Google Summer of Code?
Yes, as long as they meet all other requirements for program eligibility. Students should be sure to note their previous relationship with the project in their applications. New work will need to be done for the project as part of participation in GSoC.   

Should students begin working on their applications before Google begins accepting program applications?       
That's up to you. Keep in mind, though, that our mentoring organizations will be publishing a list of proposed project ideas, so you may find that you'll want to revamp your application later, or create an entirely new one to address one of those ideas.   

Can a student work on more than one project?
No, each participant is only eligible for one stipend.   

Can a group apply for and work on a single proposal?
No, only an individual may work on a given project. Of course, students should feel free to collaborate with others to accomplish their project goals. 

Links

* http://socghop.appspot.com/org/show/google/gsoc2009/ffopenwrt

* Ideas http://wiki.freifunk.net/Ideas

The OpenWrt team (Cph) has announced a new version of its Linux distribution for embedded wireless devices named "OpenWrt Kamikaze 808 Release". I talked to Felix Fietkau already at the WCW. Unfortunately we did not have the time to do an interview at the end. But Cyrus from freifunk Halle gave a short showcase of his interface (in German). The OpenWrt team was also impressed by it and they now announce the enclosure of the Luci interface officially. Congratulations Cyrus!

It has been quite a while since OpenWrt had a new Kamikaze release. The developer team has decided that it is time to get things straight and focus on a new release. This release have the official name: OpenWrt Kamikaze 808 Release.

The schedule will look like this:
*Last day in July - final release candidate: 808 RC-1 808 RC-1 will be a feature freeze, and all changes after this point will be bug fixes.
*Last day in August - final release: OpenWrt Kamikaze 808 Release.

OpenWrt Kamikaze 808 Release will focus on bringing the following:
- Firewall rewrite
- Broadcom 47xx running reliably with the new Kernel, not including wifi
- IMQ and Traffic shaping tested with newer kernels, especially 2.6.25
- Sysupgrade for more platforms (x86 is tested again)
- The new web interface (LuCI, Lua Configuration Interface)
- Attention towards the integration of security updates
- Package maintaining and updates between releases
- Testing, testing and lots of testing...

The 808 Release will also include support for several new platforms/targets. (http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=69873 )

Steven Cyrus Barth im Gespräch mit Bastian Bittorf über das Freifunk-Luci-Interface für OpenWRT.

Luci-Interface für OpenWRT von Steven Cyrus Barth from Mario Behling on Vimeo.

Some more info in English: FFLuCI is a Lua MVC-Framework for Freifunk with templating support. There are working configuration pages for many system, network, services and wifi settings. Please visit http://luci.freifunk-halle.net for an overview of functions, screenshots, tutorials, SVN URL and snapshot images for Atheros and Broadcom.

Steven Cyrus started to develop Luci because he was not satisfied projects like XWRT implemented things. He had a look at the X-WRT Lua files in their repository first, but what was missing was a clear abstraction layer and templating support so I decided to build everything from scratch. According to Cyrus - X-WRT has a very nice UI written in shell code but there are only limited capabilities of this scripting language and so "it is time
to bring this thing to the next level using OOP and such nifty stuff."

Luci already has a number of working configuration pages. There are more - or in a few cases less - working configuration pages in (for now) German titles and descriptions for the:

• Ethernet Switch
• Ethernet Interfaces
• DHCP-Server
• PPPoE/PPTP
• Static Routes
• Portforwarding
• Firewall
• QoS
• Wifi Devices
• Wifi Networks
• OLSR + Plugins
• FFLuci itself
• Package Management
• Root Password and SSH-Public Keys
• Mount Points for external drives
• HTTP-Server
• SSH-Server
• Dnsmasq

Also there are a few public status pages for basic system information, WLAN-Scan, Contact data and OLSR a bit like those in the Freifunk Firmware. Have a look at the screenshots here: http://firmware.freifunk-halle.net/ffluci/screenshots

Configuration Bind Interface (CBI):
You just describe the data model of the UCI file and Luci does the rest for you: It will create the HTML-form, parse and validate the user input and write the configuration data to UCI. So no need to redo all these things on every configuration page again and again. It also supports basic field dependencies, dynamic validation functions, section creation, deletion and more. See an example here: http://wiki.freifunk-halle.net/Luci:WritingModules#CBI_models

Privilege dropping:
To avoid remote exploits (like those in older versions of the Freifunk Firmware) FFLuCI will set the UID/GID of pages running in the main public non-protected section to nobody/nogroup. There are many things left to do like porting over dhcpsplash, accounting, statistics and more to Kamikaze. Contributors are welcome.

Links:

• http://luci.freifunk-halle.net
• Freifunk Firmware
• Web interface for OpenWrt and more - X-Wrt.org
• olsr.org
• B.A.T.M.A.N.
• OpenWRT

What happened to the application of the freifunk community (Blog entry) for the Google Summer of code? Well, as you can guess by now, unfortunately we did not get it.. even though we were close. I had asked Leslie Hawthorn and she wrote us back the following lines:

"I know OpenWRT and like them. We simply couldn't accept everyone. You folks made our short list if that helps. I can give you more feedback if you send me the URL for your ideas list. Is there a way Google can help you beyond Summer of Code? Leslie Hawthorn"

We had some nice ideas. Our intention was to serve as an umbrella for all the freifunk projects here, but maybe we can join the program next year. We still have the ideas pages, which is probably also intresting for developers who want to join freifunk projects in the future.

Some of the project ideas were/are:

• Multimedia Streaming in Mesh Networks / Porting Obamp to C++
• Passive + Active Measurement in Mesh Networks / Porting OpenIMP probes to OpenWRT
• Traffic Flow Visualization / IPFIX DataSource for freimap
• Mesh Node Status Monitoring / SNMP DataSource for freimap
• Service Discovery in Mesh Networks / Avahi DataSource for freimap
• Service Control Module for freimap
• Topology visualization / B.A.T.M.A.N and olsrd routing decision recovery for freimap
• Database output for freimap
• Antenna placement information elements in freifunk map data
• Search in Wireless Mesh Networks - Yacy
• Search in Wireless Mesh Networks - Nutch/Lucene
• Peer-to-peer file sharing applications in Wireless Mesh Networks
• Developing a Freifunk Theme for CMS
• VoIP phoning in Freifunk Mesh Networks
• Porting Freifunk to EeePC
• Freifunk Webinterface for OpenWrt Kamikaze

( http://wiki.freifunk.net/Ideas)

The Freifunk Wireless Community Weekend 2008 is over. I had a fantastic time meeting so many people pushing the idea of free networks to new hights. The interest in free wireless was overwhelming and we probably had more than double the number of the 51 visitors who put their names on the participants list. Many developers were taking part. We saw presentations about OpenWRT, B.A.T.M.A.N., the HorstTool, mikroFM, OpenHardware and the Luci-Interface for Freifunk networks. Receiving questions about "free networks and the implications of the law" regularly, we were extremely pleased that Reto Mantz recently published a doctoral thesis about this subject and held a presentation at the WCW (slides now available).

Besides German communities we were very happy to meet many friends from other countries like www.guifi.net from Catalunia, Spain, Sergey Yugov from Russia, Jesper Svarre with 28 people from Denmark and our friends from the Rome community ninux.org.

Together with the help of Italian and German Freifunkers Saverio and me made tons of interviews. Be sure it will not take two years this time to see them online ;-) Get a little taste of the WCW2008 with the first of a series of videos already published by our Italian friends.

Per ora vi lascio con questo breve video, che mostra qualche immagine della domenicale del Wireless Community Weekend. Molto presto verranno pubblicate le interviste. (http://blog.ninux.org/2008/05/05/lultima-sera-al-wcw2008/)

Direct Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZcH49j4hw

The countdown for the Freifunk Wireless Community Weekend 2008 conference is running and cven is haevily working on the final preparation.

As of now we have 48 people who have put their name on the participants list on the wiki at http://wiki.freifunk.net/WCW08:participants and many more who have confirmed their participation to us directly. People are joining us in the upcoming days from Freifunk communities from all over Germany and from communities in other countries. Our friends from Italy will be represented by the two well known free wireless evangelists Nino and Saverio from ninux.org and we expect Jesper Svarre from Denmark with a group of 25 people from the Association of Computer Professionals.

The WCW is a self organized conference and community gathering. We will have a community track with communities presenting themselves, e.g. from Bastian from the Weimar Freifunkers and from Keks from the community in Berlin North-East.

On the other side there will be technical talks from developers of OpenWRT, the B.A.T.M.A.N. routing protocol developers Marek Lindner and Simon Wunderlich; Thomas Hirsch - the developer of the freimap and a presentation of sven-ola - the main developer of the Freifunk Firmware,

Further panels cover subjects like Web 2.0 in the Freifunk Universe (by me, Mario Behling) or Open Networks and the current law by Dr. Reto Mantz, who has recently published a book on "Offene Netze und Recht",

Many opportunities to meet with some of the most exciting people in the international freifunk sphere! Open Mesh advocat Electra will take part in the WCW and after returning from the Open Tech Summit in Taiwan Juergen Neumann will present the latest advancements on Open Wireless Hardware. 

Last but not least we are happy to welcome participants from the academic scene coming from the TU Berlin and the Fraunhofer FOKUS Institute.

Join us at the Freifunki Wireless Community Weekend in Berlin from May 2-4! Check out the latest updates on http://wiki.freifunk.net/Wireless_Community_Weekend_2008

Some fantastic work was done during the last days working with some great folks to get an application for freifunk networks for the Google Summer of Code out. Our goal is to get new students excited about the idea of free networks and to join us in the development process and contribute code. We have formed an international group to get this application done. Besides talking to our developers in Germany I have been busily speaking to ninux.org from Italy, guifi.net from Spain and France Wireless in order to recruit our most talented and active developers as mentors for the programme. Not everyone was able to give me a "yes" yet, but we have formed a great team to start off and we are happy to welcome even more prospective mentors from other free wireless networks from around the world.

Our starting team of mentors is:

• Sven-Ola Tücke (http://ff-firmware.sf.net, Freifunk Firmware)
• Alexander Morlang (Alx, p2p in freifunk networks, Fraunhofer, Germany)
• Thomas Hirsch (freimap, Fraunhofer, Germany)
• Felix Fietkau (OpenWRT, Europe)
• Frithjof Hammer (Freifunk BNO, Germany)
• Harald Schioeberg (t-labs, Germany)
• Ramon Navarro Bosch (Guifi.net, Spain, former GSoC Plone student)
• Xavi Martinez (Guifi.net, Spain)
• Aaron Kaplan (OLSR.org, Austria)
• Francesco Saverio Proto (ninux.org, Italy)
• Mikolas Bingemer (Freifunk-Hannover.de, Germany, head of Software development of medium sized enterprise)
• Jo-Philipp Wich (leipzig.freifunk.net, Freifunk Leipzig Firmware, Germany)
• Andrea Detti is full researcher and adjoined Professor at the School of Telecommunications Engineering of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" (Italy)

The backup organization administrator is Mario Behling (me), (Freifunkblog, perspektive89.com, Germany)

My idea is that we would have mentors for students who would maybe even be able to meet them locally. As we find already more than 170 free wireless communities worldwide on the global freifunk newswire, there is a chance we could do this in a lot of cases.

Freifunk serves as an umbrella for all the local projects here. We use the Freifunk-Wiki for our coordination. We started to collect ideas for possible student projects here already as well. Currently there are:

• Multimedia Streaming in Mesh Networks / Porting Obamp to C++
• Passive + Active Measurement in Mesh Networks / Porting OpenIMP probes to OpenWRT
• Traffic Flow Visualization / IPFIX DataSource for freimap
• Mesh Node Status Monitoring / SNMP DataSource for freimap
• Service Discovery in Mesh Networks / Avahi DataSource for freimap
• Service Control Module for freimap
• Topology visualization / B.A.T.M.A.N and olsrd routing decision recovery for freimap
• Database output for freimap
• Antenna placement information elements in freifunk map data
• Search in Wireless Mesh Networks - Yacy
• Search in Wireless Mesh Networks - Nutch/Lucene
• Peer-to-peer file sharing applications in Wireless Mesh Networks
• Developing a Freifunk Theme for CMS
• VoIP phoning in Freifunk Mesh Networks
• Porting Freifunk to EeePC
• Freifunk Webinterface for OpenWrt Kamikaze
• more ideas are welcome...