Py XO/infrastructure testing results 17/02/09

[Daniel Drake]

We have run some medium-scale tests here in the office in paraguay in
order to test the process flow (warehouse setup through distribution
to children) and to test our planned activation setup for the schools.

Yesterday, we:
 - ran the collection stick on 85 XOs
 - generated leases using Paraguay's private activation lease key
 - hacked up a quick script to convert the leases into json format
 - ran those JSON leases through xs-activation-import on the XS
 - ran the paraguayan keyjector firmware update through all 85 XOs
 - generated a paraguayan customized image based on OLPC OS 800 and
signed it using paraguay's private OS key

Today, we:
 - NANDblasted our customized image onto the 85 XOs and then turned them off
 - set up 2 open APs (one Edimax EW7209APg one Linksys WRT54G) for an
approximate 40:1 ratio
 - turned on all 85 XOs as quickly as we could, which then
radioactivated themselves from the school server
(http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/9246) all at the same time

Satisfied that radioactivation works fine in a RF-quiet environment,
we went onto thinking about the conditions that will be in the school
on first day. Two scenarios are likely:
 1. All laptops on mesh channel 1 (the XO default), making channel 1
unusable, but thankfully leaving 6 and 11 RF-quiet, so activation will
still succeed.
 2. Kids will learn about APs and will connect to the ones we have set
up at the schools, but will not register with the school server (due
to not being taught about it). Therefore there will be many laptops
spamming the network using salut.

(1) needs no real testing... we are already confident that it works
fine on RF-quiet channels.
We simulated (2) by connecting 40 laptops to one AP, 40 to the other,
and not registering any. Then we took a further 10 XOs and
radioactivated them.

Overall everything went smoothly... Only problems were with
connectivity - sometimes we had to click twice to connect to the AP,
and also the Linksys stopped accepting new users after about 30 were
connected, but we won't be using that AP in the schools.

Daniel