Mesh/Makenode

makenode is a script that finishes the configuration for People's Open nodes flashed with the sudowrt firmware, see https://github.com/sudomesh/makenode.

This script is in the process of being deprecated, below is ongoing documentation this deprecation.

"Early alpha status. Things may break."

makenode theory

There are two interconnected theories that govern the implementation, usage, and deprecation of the makenode script

theory for implementation

The story goes that makenode was created to solve a few problems with the sudowrt firmware. Mainly, it was much quicker to implement changes in makenode rather than rebuilding the firmware. This way patches could be rapidly deployed with out a full rebuild and reflash of the firmware (however this is ignoring the existence of a lot of already "made nodes"). This use case of triaging patches before integrating them into a new build of the firmware devolved into using makenode to do perform almost all node configurations. While these configurations are mostly "per-node"

1. To retrieve an IP from secrets.peoplesopen.net (our meshnode-database) and then copy it into a lot of config files

2. To set a root password other per-node configs, such as hostname, private SSID, etc.

3. To perform hardware detection to select which config files to copy onto node

theory for deprecation

While makenode does work, it presents a large barrier to inclusion (e.g. doesn't work on Windows, have to be relatively comfortable with terminal) as well as limiting our ability to quickly configure "blank" routers that can be handed out to anyone.

What is does makenode change?

configs/templates/files/opt/mesh/

• tunnelhook -> callback called by config_load tunneldigger

configs/templates/files/etc/

dropbear/

• authorized keys, i.e. adds developer keys -> remove? or add more people? opt-in option in dashboard

config/

• dhcp -> dnsmasq, mesh pool, private pool
• network -> loopback, lan, adhoc, open, priv
• notdhcpserver -> extender node static ips
• polipo -> daemonised caching web proxy
• rpcd, -> sets ubus username and pass (from where?)
• snmpd -> managment/monitoring, pulls in operator email/name, presumably from makenode.js
• system -> sets hostname and log ip? from makenode.js?
• tunneldigger- > sets tunnel broker ip, l2tp interface, upstream, downstream bandwidth (related to bug #2), and tunnel hook callback script
• uhttpd -> http server, sets index directory, ubus, cgi-bin, locale

init.d/

• log -> copied from openwrt? purpose?

iproute2/

• rt_tables -> moved to makenode by MaxB, unclear purpose? reverses values for ...?

babeld.conf -> allows babel to run on l2tp, adhoc, and open interface, (could address bug #13 here)

banner -> presents version info, move back to firmware

dnsmasq.conf -> excepts interfaces l2tp0, adhoc0, eth0, why?