Mesh/Firmware/Generating

Model (rough)

Build Server: The one and only server responsible for building and signing SudoMesh OpenWRT images, mostly a collection of bash scripts.

Configuration Server: One of possibly multiple servers responsible for and authenticated to query, configure and update nodes.

• python SSL server for configuring nodes over secure socket.
• python web server as a UI to the SSL configuration server.

Node: The basic build block of any mesh!

• node-admin: extended from the openWRT admin page, used by node owner for configuration.
• node-conf-client: lua client for accepting configs and answering config queries from a configuraion server.

Node Attributes

The following attributes are required of the Node Operator for node firmware generation:

• Hardware model
• Primary vs. non-primary AP
• Geographic address (location)
• Node Op name
• Node Op phone number
• Node Op email address

The following attributes are to be generated (securely!) on the fly for node firmware generation:

• SSH host DSA keypair (optional?)
• SSH host ECDSA keypair (optional?)
• SSH host RSA keypair
• SSH root password

wlan slovenija

wlan slovenija has a firmware generator tool. Here are some links:

• config_generator.py: the core code for the generator
• build_image.py: the command line tool that uses config_generator.py

Some relevant code from config_generator.py:

      buildString = 'make image FILES="../files" PROFILE="%s" PACKAGES="policy-routing olsrd uhttpd tc nodewatcher-core nodewatcher-clients ntpclient hostapd -ppp -ppp-mod-pppoe -wpad-mini kmod-l2tp kmod-l2tp-ip kmod-l2tp-eth tunneldigger wireless-tools qos-scripts %s"' % (profile_map[self.portLayout], pkgs)
      os.chdir(path)
      os.system(buildString)

The whole nodewatcher system is in fact a web interface to the image generator (this is how it all started, historically, as a web interface + IP allocation, and then we added network monitoring, node telemetry and so on).

• live version

freifunk

Freifunk has a web app called meshkit for generating images.

• live web app
• source code

Meshkit takes a strange approach. From the readme file:

Meshkit itself just writes a uci config file and stores it in
/etc/config/meshkwizard in the resulting firmware image. The actual
configuration is done by meshwizard, which uses community profiles
and the settings from meshkit to configure the device at first boot after
the device has been flashed.

While I understand why community profiles would be a good idea, it seems odd that the configuration would happen on the device. Why not generate all of the required configuration before generating the image? That way you save a bit of space and an extra reboot of the device.

After looking at the code, I am not inclined to use it. Lots of freifunk-specific stuff. Few comments. In the end, all it does that we really care about is take a few values from the web app, write some config files for openwrt and run "make image" with some parameters. It does have a system for queuing builds, which is nice. Honestly, I think we're going to be better off making our own system