HAM RADIO Mesh Networking 202

SeaPac –Northwest Division

Convention Seaside Oregon, June 2, 2013

Brian D Heaton ky9k@ky9k.org

Steve Aberle wa7ptm@aberle.net Curt Black wr5j@arrl.net

While We’re Waiting to Start • Get One of These IRC Applications

–Android: SimpleIRC

–IOS: IRChon

–Windows: Pidgin

• Then Connect to IRC Server Address • Wifi to: NW-MESH-AP1-2462

• IRC Server: 44.24.195.1

Today’s TrajecTory 1.Refresher of 101 – HSMM-Mesh Project

2.Beyond the WRT Hardware – Scale up!

3.Adding Access Points and Services for

others

4.App Demos IRC/Webserver/VIDEO/VOIP

5.Questions…

4 Questions 1.How Many 101 Grads 2.Who has a WrT54…?

3.Who has Meshed? 4.Who has other

Hardware running

Traditional Wireless Network

Infrastructure Mode

(Access Points and Stations)

• Access Points (Master)

• Stations (Slave)

• Why not?

• Stations only communicate via access points

• Network will not function without access point

• Single point of failure.

• Service provider model – client stations are simply “consumers”

Mesh Networks

Ad-Hoc Mode (IBSS)

(Peer to Peer)

• All stations are peers

• No access points (APs)

Required

• No single point of failure.

• Routing protocols handle

multi-hop paths

Mesh Networks Ad-Hoc Mode (IBSS)

• Sounds great – Problem?

• Multi-hop on-channel paths load the RF networks twice reducing channel throughput.

• New firmware is required for consumer routers

• Requires a fundamental understanding of IP networking

• This is the second “R” in the ARRL “radio relay” in simplex operations.

•Seen for $3.50 on EBay

•Maybe $8.00 at Goodwill

•Maybe $20 at RePC

•And $50 in the corner of this swap

meet …

•For that much – Get a Ubiquity Bullet

Is This Ham Radio? – YES!

• The Part15/ISM Bands and Part97 bands overlap significantly.

– 2.4GHz – Channels 1-6

– 5.8GHz – Channels 132-165

– 900MHz – Full Band

HSMM-MESH Firmware

• HSMM-MESH (http://www.hsmm-mesh.org/)

– Very Simple web interface

– Provides basic functionality

– Supports ONLY the WRT54G/GS/GL family

– Current version (0.4.3) has a bug in the routing software (OLSRd) that prevents interoperability

– New version (unreleased) claims to support other vendors hardware by deactivating the only security used to prevent non-ham network use

NW-MESH Firmware

• Based on HSMM-MESH 0.4.3 with a bug-fixed version of OLSRd (not on-air compatible with HSMM-MESH 0.4.3)

• Same hardware support – WRT54G series

• Web interface is identical

• All HSMM-MESH How-To documents are still usable

• Uses the SSID “NW-MESH-2412” for the main mesh channel on 2.4GHz Channel 1 (2412MHz)

• Will interoperate with any properly configured device running OpenWRT

Beyond the WRT54G Series

• OpenWRT is the basis for HSMM-MESH/NW-MESH firmware

• Any device running OpenWRT can participate in NW-MESH when properly configured (bug fixed OLSRd)

• LUCI web interface is more flexible (and more complicated), but well documented.

So What Extra Stuff Can We Do?

• Nodes can operate on multiple bands and route traffic between bands – Reduces traffic on the main 2.4GHz channel

• Point-to-point links on other bands – Longer range, repeater linking, etc

• More flexible firewalling

• Easily supports multiple VLANs

• Supports packages not available on the HSMM-MESH/NW-MESH firmware – Base OpenWRT version is no longer supported

Mesh Software Etymology

OpenWrt

DD-WRT

HSMM-MESH™

NWMESH

Broadband-Hamnet™

The VCR is Flashing 12:00

Downloaded the firmware

Install in on your mesh unit

Enter your callsign

The mesh status page shows

neighbors

Now what?

Advertising is Everything!

Applications on your computer

Visible to others via the mesh

Need to advertise the applications as

"services"

IRC = Internet Relay Chat

• Supports multiple “rooms” linked across servers.

• Connect to the closest server and see all linked rooms.

• Rooms can be created and deleted on the fly

– Some rooms are configured staticly

• Everyone sees all room traffic no matter what server they connect to.

IRC Room - #MESH /join #MESH

• Get One of These IRC Applications

–Android: SimpleIRC

–IOS: IRChon

–Windows: Pidgin

• Then Connect to IRC Server Address • Wifi to: NW-MESH-AP1-2462

• IRC Server: 44.24.195.1

IRC Server – NGIRCd (Next Generation IRC Daemon)

• Available for NW-MESH/HSMM-MESH

• Available for OpenWRT (all current versions)

• Runs on any Linux system

• Relatively simple configuration

• Supports Linking and SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

• How-To available at HSMM-MESH site

• Main Site: http://ngircd.barton.de/

IRC Applications

• Iphone app here

Basic IRC Operations

• Set your nickname to your callsign – /nick callsign

• List available channels – /list

• Join a channel – /join #channelname (eg: /join #mesh)

• Creating a new channel is simple – just “/join” a channel that doesn’t exist. – /join #somechannelname

IRC Demo

• Set your nickname to your callsign

– /nick callsign

• Join The #MESH Channel

– /join #mesh

• Say something creative

• Be careful with room names on broadly linked servers. – #EOC – which EOC?

– #us.wa.co.pierce.eoc – longer to type, but identifies a single EOC. (us.wa.ci.seattle.eoc is another example)

• While a single IRC server can be used in an area, it makes less efficient use of the network – Separate TCP connection for each connected user

– Users lose connectivity if the single main server goes down

• All channel members see all traffic on channel

• Possible to create “secret” and “private” channels to control who is allowed to find and join channels

IRC Further Thoughts

Demo of Foscam F18918W

Download 17 page install

instructions from here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DAWG-HSMM/files/

Coming Attractions

• QoS

• VoIP

• Newsgroups

• Repeater Linking

• Winlink Gateways

• APRS igate and Digipeater (APRX – working now)

• D-Rats (Chat, File Sharing, Maps, Locations)

• How will you use it?

Additional Information

• NW-MESH via Yahoo Groups – nw-mesh@yahoogroups.com

• OpenWRT – Software, documentation, forums, etc

– https://openwrt.org

• HSMM-MESH – How-To documents usable with NW-MESH

firmware

– http://www.hsmm-mesh.org

• Video Configuration File: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DAWG-HSMM/files/