[mesh-dev] Planning per-router configs for makenode

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