Load-correlated distributed bandwidth analysis for LibreMesh networks – #3: Completed test network and broadened scope of the work

The planned test network has been built, employing both fully supported (I just documented them in the tested routers list here) and common home routers (officially unsupported by LibreMesh but supported by OpenWrt).

Employing non supported routers required an expansion of my previous work about making possible an AP-sta (point to multi point access point to clients) network architecture (instead of the default IEEE802.11s mesh). My previous solution relied on BMX6 which will not be included in the next release, in favor of Babeld, so the problem is open again. I provisionally managed to have Babeld on AP and client interfaces adding the following setting in /etc/config/lime on the access point:

config wifi 'radio0'
     list modes 'apname'
     option country 'ES'
     option channel_2ghz '11'
     option apname_ssid 'LibreMesh.org/%H'
     option apname_key 'someAPpassword'
     option apname_encryption 'psk2'
     option distance '100'

 config net 'wirelessap'
     option linux_name 'wlan0-apname'
     list protocols 'babeld:17'

and the following in the /etc/config/lime of the client (taking advantage of the client protocol I added some time ago here):

config wifi 'radio0'
     list modes 'client'
     option country 'ES'
     option channel_2ghz '11'
     option client_ssid 'LibreMesh.org/LiMe-eb7f64'
     option client_key 'someAPpassword'
     option client_encryption 'psk2'
     option distance '100'

 config net 'wirelessclient'
     option linux_name 'wlan0-sta'
     list protocols 'client'
     list protocols 'babeld:17'

For some reason this solution does not propagate the default route obtained from Babeld to the whole network, this does not directly affect my project, anyway I’ll surely manage to fix this in the upcoming days.
In case the usage of such perfectly-working trashware was a blocker, I will receive a few more supported routers in the following days and I will just use those.

Also due to the switch to Babeld, to obtain a complete graph of the network is not yet possible (Babeld being based on the distance vector principle, does not know the whole topography and we’ll have to aggregate it using the new shared-state LibreMesh feature).

During the building of the test network, the planned topography changed a bit resulting in this one (solid lines are cabled connections, directional dotted lines with arrows points from the client to the access point, non-directional dotted lines are proper IEEE802.11s mesh):

All the routers were flashed with OpenWrt 18.06-SNAPSHOT image, which is OpenWrt 18.06.4 with additional fixes appeared in the release branch here compiled locally using OpenWrt buildroot. LibreMesh packages were also compiled in the same process but not included in the compiled image, and installed later using opkg and serving the packages over the local network. This approach showed to be more convenient than expected, additionally, the fallback image is a plain OpenWrt, which decrease the risk of “brikking” the devices.

The complete list of the installed packages from the LibreMesh ones is:

check-date-http first-boot-wizard hotplug-initd-services lime-app lime-debug lime-hwd-ground-routing lime-hwd-openwrt-wan lime-proto-anygw lime-proto-babeld lime-proto-batadv lime-proto-wan lime-system shared-state shared-state-babeld_hosts shared-state-dnsmasq_hosts shared-state-bat_hosts shared-state-persist shared-state-dnsmasq_leases shared-state-pirania

Lately, I got also involved in the development of lime-log-review, which uses liblognorm to decrease the volume of the logs and can be used in my project for storing the key information from the voluminous logs when an incident is detected.