9 Mar
2015
9 Mar
'15
10:37 a.m.
Thanks for thinking this all through Marc!
A couple things I was thinking
We're going to need poe for all of these devices, except for the MyNet. How
cheap was that little poe strip that you bought for our little dev setup?
We'll also then need a place to plug in two AC devices (doesn't seem like a
big deal).
One possible downside to this setup is that all of the CPU-intensive stuff
is handled by the My Net router and the other (very
capable) devices are
just bridging. I think the solution is to accept this less-than-perfect
solution for now and rely on whatever future router we decide to use as a
My Net replacement to have a much faster CPU (this is probably a safe bet).
It's not clear necessarily how very capable the power bridges are. Also -
it allows us to use a much larger variety of other gear, including much
cheaper mikrotic gear (especially some neat AC devices) that don't support
openwrt.
However, we DO need to come up with a solution for accessing and monitoring
all of the bridged gear that is attached to these MyNet routers. Because
each node is assigned a /26, we could probably reserve x.x.x.2 for whatever
device is on port 1, x.x.x.3 for whatever device is on port 2, etc.
I should mention that Max and Adri today discovered
that CPU _is_ a huge
limiting factor on the Picostation 2 routers, so if we put too much load on
the (granted much much faster, maybe 7-8 times faster) newer devices it may
become an issue again.
Let's see what we can do here. We might consider some small router board
with many ethernet ports which we can run the firmware on. I'm not sure
what options are out there, but something like this:
http://routerboard.com/RB750GL I have no idea what sort of support for
openwrt they have...
We just ordered five Western Digital My Net N750 routers for use in the
Omni test network, and I think the N600 version (same,
but non-gigabit and
cheaper) is a good candidate for home-routers that we can give to people.
Awesome - I'm excited to check these out!
On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Marc Juul <juul(a)labitat.dk> wrote:
> Right now makenode has configs that are trying to handle differences in
> chipsets, frequency, etc. in a way that's agnostic of the actual router
> model. That's cool, but maybe more trouble than it's worth (at least for
> now).
>
> Unless there are objections I'm going to change it so we have one
> configuration per router model. I want us to get to a point, very soon,
> where we have the following working and separate configurations:
>
> * Nanobridge M5
> ** Bridging only
> * Nanostation M5
> ** Bridging only (on both ethernet ports)
> * Nanostation M2
> ** Bridging only (on both ethernet ports)
> * Western Digital My Net N600/N750
> ** Full sudowrt firmware with the 5 GHz radio only having
> pplsopen.net-node2node
>
> The My Net has five ethernet ports. I'm thinking we can configure them
> like so:
>
> Port 1: To home DSL/Cable Internet connection (if any)
> Port 2: Connect your local gear to the mesh (like peoplesopen.net ssid
> but wired)
> Port 3: Connect a Nanostation M2 which is basically like adding an
> antenna. You'd use this to extend your coverage out onto the street (or you
> could just add an actual antenna if that's feasible given distance between
> routers and coaxial loss).
> Port 4 and 5: Connect rooftop Nanobridge M5s or Nanostation M5s.
>
> In the future we should consider making it possible to easily reconfigure
> these, both at initial configuration time and through an "advanced" tab in
> the GUI, but for now I think it's much easier to have ports dedicated to
> each operation.
>
> Here's how we'd use this in different scenarios:
>
> # We're just relaying off someone's rooftop
>
> We'd have two or more Nano(bridge/station) M5s on the roof and they'd just
> connect to each-other. They're already bridging so no extra configuration
> is needed.
>
> # Someone just wants to be part of the mesh without paying a lot
>
> They get a My Net N600 and hook it into their internet, if any.
>
> # Someone wants a rooftop link and wants to use the mesh in their house
>
> They get a My Net N600 and hook it into their internet, if any, and they
> hook their rooftop-mounted Nano(bridge/station) into port 4 or 5 of the My
> Net.
>
> # Previous scenario but with more street-level coverage
>
> They additionally hook in a Nanostation M2 to port 3 of the My Net or they
> hook in one or more external antennas to the My Net using the internal u.fl
> connectors. The second solution is definitely not something we should
> encourage for people who aren't already comfortable with that level of DIY.
>
> -----
>
> One possible downside to this setup is that all of the CPU-intensive stuff
is handled by the My Net router and the other (very
capable) devices are
just bridging. I think the solution is to accept this less-than-perfect
solution for now and rely on whatever future router we decide to use as a
My Net replacement to have a much faster CPU (this is probably a safe bet).
>
I should mention that Max and Adri today discovered
that CPU _is_ a huge
limiting factor on the Picostation 2 routers, so if we put too much load on
the (granted much much faster, maybe 7-8 times faster) newer devices it may
become an issue again.
>
> We just ordered five Western Digital My Net N750 routers for use in the
Omni test network, and I think the N600 version (same,
but non-gigabit and
cheaper) is a good candidate for home-routers that we can give to people.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> --
> marc/juul
>
>
>
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