[OLPC Networking] Re: [olpc-software] "Mesh" Software

[Jim Gettys]

On Mon, 2006-04-17 at 23:14 -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-04-17 at 22:00 +0200, Fabian Deutsch wrote:
> > Hey,
> > 
> > I just looked through the archives but didn't find anything about the
> > software, which is going to be used to create the wireless-mesh.
> > 
> > Maybe 802.11s would have been a good start, but doesn't seem to be ready yet
> > ...
> 
> No, 802.11s isn't really going to be ready until next year even?
> 
> > There are protocols like AODV and OLSR, but I'd personally prefer something
> > more standard. Something like OSPF.
> 
> Last I knew Michail was talking about AODV, I'm unsure if that's
> changed.  I'd like to stress here that since OLPC is going to be
> deploying quite a few systems, we can't rely on an immature, untested,
> unproven mesh routing protocol.

There are routing algorithms being used today in MIT roofnet.  And I
believe there are several other deployed research systems.

And I know Michail says there are three possibilities; but I haven't
(yet) tried to understand what they are as yet, or their relationships
with conventional routing protocols like OSPF.

And I know Michail has said that isn't clear which will work best in
which circumstances; experimentation will be in order.

Mesh networking is an area we, by necessity, will be leading along with
several research groups we work with; it is far from clear that others
know more than is known by the roofnet folks.

So while much/most of what we are doing is pretty standard stuff, there
are two areas where we are likely to be doing truly novel stuff (at the
base software level):
   mesh networking
   power management
So it is time to get used to the fact that we have a couple areas where
we'll be working in advance of the commercial state of the art, and to
which the risk will be higher than we'd like under ideal circumstances.

Just remember that there are people all over the world motivated to help
us make it work; we aren't doing this all by ourselves.
                               Regards,
                                    - Jim



> 
> Dan
> 
> > OSPF isn't suitable for wireless meshes currently, but there are some
> > efforts to extend OSPF v3 [1] in a way, so it can be used in MANETs.
> > 
> > ANother interesting document can be found here [4], which gives some
> > informations about the behaviour of MANETs with about 100 nodes.
> > 
> > There is already a patch (draft)[2] for quagga[3] and a simulator 2]
> > available.
> > 
> > fabian
> > 
> > --
> > [1] http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ogier-ospf-mdr-position-00.txt
> > [2] http://hipserver.mct.phantomworks.org/ietf/ospf/
> > [3] http://www.quagga.net/
> > [4]
> > http://hipserver.mct.phantomworks.org/ietf/ospf/reports/Boeing-D950-10897-1.pdf
> > 
> 
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-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child