mesh portal discovery

[david at lang.hm]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008, david at lang.hm wrote:

> for #2 the basic approach is the same as LVS uses in tunneling mode see 
> http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/VS-IPTunneling.html for a diagram and 
> explination
>
>  This is basicly what I was suggesting earlier, don't worry about the 
> outbound traffic, just bounce the inbound traffic to the closest node (via a 
> tunnel) before sending it over the air. this chould be a matter of useing the 
> existing LVS code and changing the server selection logic with something that 
> is aware of the wireless topology.
>
> to avoid a routing loop where the packet gets bounced back and forth between 
> MPP boxes, you should be able to set things up so that the load balancing is 
> only done on packets coming in from the outside (I don't know if iptables can 
> do this stock, but it should be a simple, if ugly hack to make packets 
> arriving through a tunnel bypass the LVS code and get inserted just past it 
> in the IP stack)
>
> the worst case with this model should be that some inbound packets get 
> relayed to the wrong MPP and make more hops then they need to over the air.

another thought that hit me.

you have a mesh routing daemon (I don't know if it's in kernel space or 
user space) to decide how to get the packets to the target laptop over the 
mesh.

what if this routing daemon is told about tunnels to other MPP nodes and 
treats them like one radio hop for the routing decision? the result should 
be that if the node is closer to another MPP node the inbound packet will 
go over the wire until it is as close to the laptop as possible.

David Lang