Joining up with the Mount Pleasant Community Mesh Network

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Ben Mendis

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Mar 30, 2012, 12:56:29 PM3/30/12
to Project Byzantium (Emergency Mesh Networking), HacDC Members Discussion List
Greetings all,

As I have mentioned in the past there is a community mesh networking project starting to congeal just across the street from us in Mount Pleasant. The effort is being spearheaded by the Broadband Bridge (http://www.broadbandbridge.org/) and they're using the Commotion Wireless software from the New America Foundation (http://oti.newamerica.net/commotion_wireless_0).


As you can see, they already have six routers setup. I'd like to make HacDC number seven. I'm willing to pay for all the equipment out of pocket so that will not require a vote. Once the equipment has arrived, the next step would be to go up on the roof and install it. I'd like to do that next Saturday, April 7. I know that some of you have roof experience so I'd like to solicit advice on who to talk to and how to go about getting a router installed on the roof. 

Once we have the router setup and configured, we can make a decision on whether or not we'd like to be a gateway node and provide internet access to mesh clients. That would require some work by our admin team (and possibly some additional equipment?) to securely segment and throttle the traffic. And of course that is an issue that would require a vote from the membership at an upcoming meeting. 

Even without becoming a gateway node, I believe HacDC can offer value to the network and the community by helping to extend the mesh network and by developing/deploying mesh-only community-centric web services.

HacDC's own mesh networking project, Project Byzantium, is technologically similar and I see the opportunity for a very symbiotic relationship here. At the upcoming Project Byzantium Sprint this weekend we will discuss extending our current Byzantium Linux distro to support the protocols used but the Mount Pleasant community mesh, as well as software services we could develop or deploy which might enhance the value of a local/community network.

I'm very excited about this! Let's get it done.

Ben the Pyrate
P-)

Ben Mendis

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Mar 30, 2012, 3:09:17 PM3/30/12
to Project Byzantium (Emergency Mesh Networking)

Charles N Wyble

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Mar 30, 2012, 5:53:31 PM3/30/12
to Byza...@hacdc.org
On 03/30/2012 11:56 AM, Ben Mendis wrote:
Greetings all,

As I have mentioned in the past there is a community mesh networking project starting to congeal just across the street from us in Mount Pleasant. The effort is being spearheaded by the Broadband Bridge (http://www.broadbandbridge.org/) and they're using the Commotion Wireless software from the New America Foundation (http://oti.newamerica.net/commotion_wireless_0).

This is very exciting! Speaking as CTO/co founder of the Free Network Foundation, the more local mesh networks that come on line the better! Will be interesting to see how commotion performs in some real world usage.




As you can see, they already have six routers setup. I'd like to make HacDC number seven. I'm willing to pay for all the equipment out of pocket so that will not require a vote. Once the equipment has arrived, the next step would be to go up on the roof and install it. I'd like to do that next Saturday, April 7. I know that some of you have roof experience so I'd like to solicit advice on who to talk to and how to go about getting a router installed on the roof.

What gear would you use?


Once we have the router setup and configured, we can make a decision on whether or not we'd like to be a gateway node and provide internet access to mesh clients. That would require some work by our admin team (and possibly some additional equipment?) to securely segment and throttle the traffic. And of course that is an issue that would require a vote from the membership at an upcoming meeting.

I'm eager to see how decisions in this regard are reached. FNF is interested in how governance models emerge for various networks.


Even without becoming a gateway node, I believe HacDC can offer value to the network and the community by helping to extend the mesh network and by developing/deploying mesh-only community-centric web services.

Absolutely!

It's a big decision. Focus limited resources on building a platform for release, or get involved in operating a network. FNF is looking to help operators with a variety of horizontal resources (such as ticketing/monitoring/backups/security etc). This will hopefully greatly lower the barrier to entry for network deployments.


HacDC's own mesh networking project, Project Byzantium, is technologically similar and I see the opportunity for a very symbiotic relationship here. At the upcoming Project Byzantium Sprint this weekend we will discuss extending our current Byzantium Linux distro to support the protocols used but the Mount Pleasant community mesh, as well as software services we could develop or deploy which might enhance the value of a local/community network.

Very cool. Any chance you can record the meeting? FNF is looking very closely at Babel and OLSR. We believe Babel is the best way to go. The more data we can gather, the better.


I'm very excited about this! Let's get it done.

+1.

-- 
Charles N Wyble 
@charlesnw cha...@knownelement.com (818) 280-7059
Building a cost effective, open, secure bit moving platform for tomorrows default free zone.

Ben Mendis

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Mar 31, 2012, 12:13:16 AM3/31/12
to byza...@hacdc.org
Hi Charles,

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 5:53 PM, Charles N Wyble <cha...@knownelement.com> wrote:
On 03/30/2012 11:56 AM, Ben Mendis wrote:

As you can see, they already have six routers setup. I'd like to make HacDC number seven. I'm willing to pay for all the equipment out of pocket so that will not require a vote. Once the equipment has arrived, the next step would be to go up on the roof and install it. I'd like to do that next Saturday, April 7. I know that some of you have roof experience so I'd like to solicit advice on who to talk to and how to go about getting a router installed on the roof.

What gear would you use?

On the advice of Preston  Rhea I ordered a Ubiquiti NanoStation M2. I also took the opportunity to grab a couple Ubiquiti network adapters I've had my eye on for a while.

Once we have the router setup and configured, we can make a decision on whether or not we'd like to be a gateway node and provide internet access to mesh clients. That would require some work by our admin team (and possibly some additional equipment?) to securely segment and throttle the traffic. And of course that is an issue that would require a vote from the membership at an upcoming meeting.

I'm eager to see how decisions in this regard are reached. FNF is interested in how governance models emerge for various networks.

Well you're welcome to attend one of our monthly member meeting to see HacDC governance in action! We meet on the second Tuesday of each month. 

Even without becoming a gateway node, I believe HacDC can offer value to the network and the community by helping to extend the mesh network and by developing/deploying mesh-only community-centric web services.

Absolutely!

It's a big decision. Focus limited resources on building a platform for release, or get involved in operating a network. FNF is looking to help operators with a variety of horizontal resources (such as ticketing/monitoring/backups/security etc). This will hopefully greatly lower the barrier to entry for network deployments.

I believe that much of the software and services which would be relevant to a community wireless network would also be relevant to an emergency mesh network. So I don't see this project as distracting us from our core goals, but rather giving us a persistent environment in which to test and hone the tools we were planning to include anyways. 

HacDC's own mesh networking project, Project Byzantium, is technologically similar and I see the opportunity for a very symbiotic relationship here. At the upcoming Project Byzantium Sprint this weekend we will discuss extending our current Byzantium Linux distro to support the protocols used but the Mount Pleasant community mesh, as well as software services we could develop or deploy which might enhance the value of a local/community network.

Very cool. Any chance you can record the meeting? FNF is looking very closely at Babel and OLSR. We believe Babel is the best way to go. The more data we can gather, the better.

At the present time we don't have the capacity to do recordings of our classes or events at HacDC (though this is something we're currently working on so in the future it will be possible). If there are individuals at the sprint that would like to record for us I will ask them to post it online. 

We will, however do a post-sprint write-up which will be posted to this list to keep everyone in the loop.

John Atkeson

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Mar 31, 2012, 8:01:43 AM3/31/12
to byza...@hacdc.org
Could someone post a link to the Commotion Wireless source code being
used? I'm curious where they're taking it.

Apologies if this has already been done and I just missed it...

Thanks,
John

Ben Mendis

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Mar 31, 2012, 8:12:47 AM3/31/12
to byza...@hacdc.org
Hi John,

It looks like there code repositories are located here:

As far as I can tell the repos that have relevant code in them are: commotion-openwrt, commotion-visualizer, and OLSRd (however this one appears to be identical to the upstream OLSRd repository).

P-)


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John Atkeson

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Mar 31, 2012, 1:38:51 PM3/31/12
to byza...@hacdc.org
Hmm, thanks for the link but this seems empty:
https://code.commotionwireless.net/projects/commotion-linux/repository

Looks like the 'git push' instructions are asking the reader to be the
first person to upload source code?

Maybe New America Foundation plans to push later...

--
John
http://jca3.freeshell.org

Charles N Wyble

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Mar 31, 2012, 8:07:00 PM3/31/12
to Byza...@hacdc.org
On 03/30/2012 11:13 PM, Ben Mendis wrote:
Hi Charles,

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 5:53 PM, Charles N Wyble <cha...@knownelement.com> wrote:


On the advice of Preston  Rhea I ordered a Ubiquiti NanoStation M2. I also took the opportunity to grab a couple Ubiquiti network adapters I've had my eye on for a while.

Very good hardware! It's what we use in our FreedomTowers.



Well you're welcome to attend one of our monthly member meeting to see HacDC governance in action! We meet on the second Tuesday of each month. 

I'd love to. However I'm in Austin TX. I'll probably be in DC quite a bit over the summer, and will swing by the space for sure.


I believe that much of the software and services which would be relevant to a community wireless network would also be relevant to an emergency mesh network. So I don't see this project as distracting us from our core goals, but rather giving us a persistent environment in which to test and hone the tools we were planning to include anyways. 

Hmmmm. That's a good way to put it. Time will tell. :)


At the present time we don't have the capacity to do recordings of our classes or events at HacDC (though this is something we're currently working on so in the future it will be possible). If there are individuals at the sprint that would like to record for us I will ask them to post it online. 

Thanks.


We will, however do a post-sprint write-up which will be posted to this list to keep everyone in the loop.

Superb!

Ben Mendis

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May 24, 2012, 7:13:33 PM5/24/12
to byza...@hacdc.org, mem...@hacdc.org
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Hash: SHA1

Ok, it's done!

This morning Preston Rhea came by the space with a couple OTI engineers
(the guys who develop the Commotion firmware) some members of the
community who were curious about the mesh networking project, and a film
crew from AFP who doing a story on the Mount Pleasant network. After
some hasty introductions we dove right into it. Specifically, Haxwithaxe
put the finishing touches on the mast he designed and built for the
router and Preston upgraded our router to the latest copy of the
Commotion firmware. Then we all went up to roof where we mounted the
router and strung the Cat-5 to power it.

Unfortunately, we are not in range of any of the other nodes (yet) so we
are currently a desert island in this mesh. We just don't have a good
line-of-sight to any of the other nodes in the network. However there's
a good chance that one of the intermediate buildings will install a node
which will serve to bridge us over to the rest of the MtPleasant
network.

In the mean time, we have a node up on the roof which we can begin
experimenting with in various ways. One thing we would like to do, of
course, it make sure that Byzantium Linux and Commotion can seamlessly
interoperate. But beyond just that, who has any ideas for local,
community-centric web apps or services which we could offer over the
local-only Mt Pleasant/Columbia Heights mesh network?

Ben the Pyrate


On Thu, 12 Apr 2012, Ben Mendis wrote:

> Ack, I'm doing a horrible job with communication. We've gotten permission from Church Brian and I'm planning to go up with Martin on
> Friday and scope out the roof to see what the possibilities are.ᅵ
>
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Xaq Rothman <xaq...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know I'm a bit late, but I'm very interested. Anything happening with this?
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Ben Mendis <dragon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Relevant:ï¿œhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/community-wifi-its-a-digital-day-for-the-neighborhood/2012/03/29/gIQAMIYZlS_st
> ory.html
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Ben Mendis <dragon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I haven't discussed it with him yet but I will definitely ask for the church's permission before
> sticking anything up on the roof.
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:06 PM, HacDC Treasurer <trea...@hacdc.org> wrote:
> Have you gotten the okay from Brian Best, the church manager? ï¿œIt
> sounds like something they would support but it is still probably
> something they would need to approve. ï¿œIn the mean time can it go in
> the window? ï¿œHow much performance would be lost if it were kept inside
> instead of on the roof? ï¿œIt would be easier to maintain indoors...
> --Tim
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Ben Mendis <dragon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Greetings all,
> >
> > As I have mentioned in the past there is a community mesh networking project
> > starting to congeal just across the street from us in Mount Pleasant. The
> > effort is being spearheaded by the Broadband Bridge
> > (http://www.broadbandbridge.org/) and they're using the Commotion Wireless
> > software from the New America Foundation
> > (http://oti.newamerica.net/commotion_wireless_0).
> >
> > Map of current
> >
> routers:ï¿œhttps://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=209539979840329595924.0004b85077c98dde0aed0&msa=0
> >
> > As you can see, they already have six routers setup. I'd like to make HacDC
> > number seven. I'm willing to pay for all the equipment out of pocket so that
> > will not require a vote. Once the equipment has arrived, the next step would
> > be to go up on the roof and install it. I'd like to do that next Saturday,
> > April 7. I know that some of you have roof experience so I'd like to solicit
> > advice on who to talk to and how to go about getting a router installed on
> > the roof.
> >
> > Once we have the router setup and configured, we can make a decision on
> > whether or not we'd like to be a gateway node and provide internet access to
> > mesh clients. That would require some work by our admin team (and possibly
> > some additional equipment?) to securely segment and throttle the traffic.
> > And of course that is an issue that would require a vote from the membership
> > at an upcoming meeting.
> >
> > Even without becoming a gateway node, I believe HacDC can offer value to the
> > network and the community by helping to extend the mesh network and by
> > developing/deploying mesh-only community-centric web services.
> >
> > HacDC's own mesh networking project, Project Byzantium, is technologically
> > similar and I see the opportunity for a very symbiotic relationship here. At
> > theï¿œupcomingï¿œProject Byzantium Sprint this weekend we will discuss extending
> > our current Byzantium Linux distro to support the protocols used but the
> > Mount Pleasant community mesh, as well as software services we could develop
> > or deploy which might enhance the value of a local/community network.
> >
> > I'm very excited about this! Let's get it done.
> >
> > Ben the Pyrate
> > P-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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