New version of Afrimesh
Steve Song
I thought you might want to see the fruits of Antoine's hard labour
with Afrimesh over the last few months. The new version (.954) sports
a much cleaner and more intuitive interface as well as Village Telco
customisations that enable Afrimesh to recognise a new Mesh Potato on
the network and prompt the administrator to configure it. You can see
a short video of it in action that I made with the help of Elektra and
Paul G-S.
If you'd like to try it out, I've put up a draft howto at:
http://wiki.villagetelco.org/index.php?title=Mesh_Potato_HOWTOs#Testing_Afrimesh_Version_.954
Feedback, questions, comments welcome.
Cheers.... Steve
David Rowe
The new GUI on the video looks very nice - good work Antoine.
1/ The video looks cool but the audio level was really low for me. Not
sure if it's a level control on Vimeo or something on my machine. Other
videos on the same machine sound OK.
2/ Will it work on Ubuntu 9.1? I have a 9.1 laptop I want to use to
demo this software at ExtremeCom.
3/ Will it work without an Internet connection at all? Can it be
installed without an Internet connection (i.e. with the packages on a
USB)? This is essential for low bandwidth sites like the Dili VT and
useful for demos, especially if the notebook Wifi is being used for the
mesh.
4/ What MP firmware version is required?
5/ If I don't install the Afrimesh MP packages will the basic Afrimesh
functionality still work (i.e. drawing maps of nodes)? That's all I
really want for the Dili VT. While the new automated set up looks cool
the guys in Dili can already configure nodes quickly and easily.
6/ What happens if open street map data is not available for my
location?
Thanks,
David
Antoine van Gelder
On 22 Aug 2010, at 05:45 , David Rowe wrote:
> The new GUI on the video looks very nice - good work Antoine.
Tx David :)
I'd just like to stress that r954 is ABSOLUTELY NEITHER an official nor stable release so please adjust expectations accordingly to avoid disappointment!
> 2/ Will it work on Ubuntu 9.1? I have a 9.1 laptop I want to use to
> demo this software at ExtremeCom.
I don't know, probably?
10.04 is the new LTS (Long Term Support) release so I'll be targeting that for the next three years.
> 3/ Will it work without an Internet connection at all? Can it be
> installed without an Internet connection (i.e. with the packages on a
> USB)? This is essential for low bandwidth sites like the Dili VT and
> useful for demos, especially if the notebook Wifi is being used for the
> mesh.
You can install any Ubuntu package without an Internet connection if you have the .deb files. Remember though that dpkg does not resolve dependencies so you will have to install them manually!
In addition to the villagetelco-dashboard.deb you will need .debs for:
apache2
snmp
snmpd
pmacct
libcredis
redis-server
uci
> 4/ What MP firmware version is required?
I'm developing against r233.
> 5/ If I don't install the Afrimesh MP packages will the basic Afrimesh
> functionality still work (i.e. drawing maps of nodes)? That's all I
> really want for the Dili VT. While the new automated set up looks cool
> the guys in Dili can already configure nodes quickly and easily.
Some functionality will still work yes, but you really don't want to go there!
If you want to disable provisioning do:
/etc/init.d/provisioning disable
As we get closer to a stable release I'll be splitting the packages up so that we can more easily build the various firmware that reflect the functionality desired.
> 6/ What happens if open street map data is not available for my
> location?
It's probably time to create a FAQ on the Wiki for this question :)
The options are currently:
* Build your own OpenStreetMaps tile rendering server
http://weait.com/content/build-your-own-openstreetmap-server-ubuntu-1004-lucid-lynx
* Render your tiles in the cloud and download them for local hosting
Rendered tiles can be dumped into a local web server and the address for the afrimesh map server configured accordingly.
I don't suggest you try to suck tiles from openstreetmaps.org, opencyclemap.org etc:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy
If someone is prepared to supply&host a sturdy server w/ loads of disk, RAM & bandwidth I'd be delighted to set up something user friendly that lets you easily select a region and generate a tar ball of tiles.
- antoine
David Rowe
Some more questions I had buried in there but I probably didn't make
clear:
7/ After installation will Afrimesh run without an Internet connection?
8/ In the absence of maps can it run without any open street map? Like
a blank screen or a JPG behind it? Generating maps for me is not an
option.
9/ Sure, I appreciate the software is alpha. However I have two live
networks now that could use it, and could have used it as far back as
April. We need release software quickly so other parts of the Village
Telco can be tested. So I would love to see release version of Afrimesh
sooner rather than later. I am in favour of nailing any issues holding
up release rather than development of more new features.
What is the planned release date?
----------/----------
Some general comments to the list.....
With this question:
"5/ If I don't install the Afrimesh MP packages will the basic
Afrimesh functionality still work (i.e. drawing maps of
nodes)?"
This is where I was heading:
I would really like to see Afrimesh (and indeed the VT server) be an
"orthogonal" component in the Village Telco. The Village Telco should
run well with a server or without one. A surprising outcome of the Dili
VT is that no one is interested in upstream calls GSM/PSTN calls, so the
server isn't doing much. This may be the case in other VT deployments,
although many of course will still need a server.
One very cool feature of the Village Telco is you can switch on a couple
MPs, configure them in minutes using the Web interface or a phone, and
you have a phone network. I would love to see this functionality
continue - it would be unfortunate if MP integration with
server/Afrimesh functionality became so tight that we needed a server in
every VT network for automated configuration.
Thanks,
David
Steve Song
On 22 August 2010 22:33, David Rowe <da...@rowetel.com> wrote:
> Thanks Antoine,
>
> Some more questions I had buried in there but I probably didn't make
> clear:
>
> 7/ After installation will Afrimesh run without an Internet connection?
Yes. However, even if you have loaded the map while you had an
Internet connection, browsers like Firefox will not load cached map
tiles for some reason. A hack around this is to use a caching proxy
like Polipo. I've tested this and it works although it is obviously
just a hack.
> 8/ In the absence of maps can it run without any open street map? Like
> a blank screen or a JPG behind it? Generating maps for me is not an
> option.
It can't do this yet but I think this is essential. Having a live map
is great but equally important is having a static alternative which
could be a scan of a paper map or a simple grid.
I agree. I think it would be removing a feature of the Village Telco
to tie the Mesh Potatoes to a server. Some people will be happier
with a purely peer-to-peer network or with their own server recipe.
> Thanks,
>
> David
>
> On Sun, 2010-08-22 at 09:18 +0200, Antoine van Gelder wrote:
>> On 22 Aug 2010, at 05:45 , David Rowe wrote:
>> > The new GUI on the video looks very nice - good work Antoine.
>>
>>
>> Tx David :)
>>
>> I'd just like to stress that r954 is ABSOLUTELY NEITHER an official nor stable release so please adjust expectations accordingly to avoid disappointment!
Full disclosure. I put this software up to be tested. It seemed
useful enough to me when I tested it that I thought others might like
to try it too.
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--
Steve Song
Telecommunications Fellow, Shuttleworth Foundation
email: steve...@shuttleworthfoundation.org
work: +27 21 970 1220
mobile: +27 83 482 2088
skype: steve_l_song
blog: http://manypossibilities.net
twitter: stevesong
Paul Gardner-Stephen
Indeed, Antoine, it was excellent to see your great work on this in
Vienna.
configure, and I think that automatic self-configuration is a valuable
trait in any case.
Our approach in Serval is to assume zero infrastructure, and consider
anything else as an opportunity to be seized.
But I think I get the impression that this is where the MP software
stack is anyway, and is likely to stay, which is encouraging, not just
for Serval, but for ease of use and hence broad adoption of the MP
generally.
Paul.
Antoine van Gelder
On 22 Aug 2010, at 22:33 , David Rowe wrote:
> Generating maps for me is not an option.
How about flying a kite? :-)
est US$150.00
(via Amy Sun)
- antoine
David Carman
<ant...@7degrees.co.za> wrote:
> est US$150.00
>
> (via Amy Sun)
Is that Amy Sun from Fab Fi? -
http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/amy-with-pig-snout-600x430.jpg
D