SECN-5 Firmware

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T Gillett

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Dec 19, 2017, 9:39:40 PM12/19/17
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Hi All

I have posted SECN-5 firmware based on LEDE 17.01.4 to the VillageTelco Downloads page.

You can download firmware for various devices at the pages below:



Ubiquity
    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/secn/stable/ubnt/SECN_5/GA01.0/


Support for devices with only 4MB Flash memory is limited because there is not sufficient memory to store the LEDE firmware and additional packages like batman-adv, so you will see that only firmware for devices with 8MB+ Flash is listed.

We have made an alternate firmware for some popular 4MB TP-Link devices using 802.11s meshing in lieu of batman-adv specifically for VT-RACHEL use.
These can be found here:

Regards
Terry

khaipi

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Jan 14, 2018, 5:59:52 AM1/14/18
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Hi Terry,

Wish you a happy new year and really appreciate this.

Can we use SECN-5 on Mesh Potato 2.0 - Phone w/ external antenna?

Regards,

Thomas Khai

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T Gillett

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Jan 14, 2018, 3:06:14 PM1/14/18
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Hi Khai
Comments in-line below.
Regards
Terry


On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 8:59 PM, khaipi <kha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Terry,

Wish you a happy new year and really appreciate this.

Thank you.


Can we use SECN-5 on Mesh Potato 2.0 - Phone w/ external antenna?


Partly.
You can install the Basic version of the firmware on the MP02-Phone device..
At this point there is no support for the FXS subsystem, so the Phone will not operate.
We are still working on porting the FXS code to LEDE.
The firmware is located here:
 

davidfra...@gmail.com

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Mar 20, 2018, 1:29:36 PM3/20/18
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Hi Terry

 

I have just started following up on your note as I have been so busy L

 

I am using the MR3020 plus the WR842n v3 in my network and have not moved over to LEDE 17.01.4 yet. Given the 4MB flash memory issue it looks as though I will have to move to 802.11s rather than sticking with BATMANAdv; do you have any experience with throughput with the two systems?

 

Another question. Will you be issuing a software option of LEDE 17.01.4 and BATMANAdv but without VTRACHEL?

 

Regards

 

David Lindsay



On Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 2:39:40 AM UTC, tlg wrote:
Hi All

I have posted SECN-5 firmware based on LEDE 17.01.4 to the VillageTelco Downloads page.


Support for devices with only 4MB Flash memory is limited because there is not sufficient memory to store the LEDE firmware and additional packages like batman-adv, so you will see that only firmware for devices with 8MB+ Flash is listed.

We have made an alternate firmware for some popular 4MB TP-Link devices using 802.11s meshing in lieu of batman-adv specifically for VT-RACHEL use.
These can be found here:

Regards
Terry

T Gillett

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Mar 22, 2018, 6:42:14 AM3/22/18
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Hi David

I have not yet made a direct comparison of throughput of 802.11s vs batman-adv based meshes.
I plan to do some testing on this over the next few weeks and my expectation is that the performance will be similar for simple networks.
For more complex networks, the more advanced traffic management capabilities of batman-adv should keep throughput higher than the simpler 802.11s routing.

I am not sure that I understand your second question about using batman-adv with LEDE-17.04 in relation to VT-RACHEL.

At this point in the SECN-5 firmware, I have used 802.11s mesh only with the 4MB RAM TP-Link devices which have been historically used for VT-RACHEL classroom nodes in simple mesh networks typically used to share an upstream network connection.

For devices with 8MB+ RAM, the SECN-5 firmware uses batman-adv as was done in the previous SECN firmware.

Could you explain a little more about what you are asking please?

Regards
Terry

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davidfra...@gmail.com

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Apr 11, 2018, 4:50:52 AM4/11/18
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I currently use a mixture of modems with 4MB and less than 4MB of RAM (MR3020) but have not used VT-RACHEL at all. Should I consider moving to firmware with 802.11s in the future, or will the option of batman-adv without VT-RACHEL  still be available in the future?

Thanks
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T Gillett

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Apr 11, 2018, 8:18:51 AM4/11/18
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Hi David

The problem is that the current LEDE / OpenWrt base firmware has grown to the point where it is no longer possible to add the range of additional packages used in the SECN software and fit it in 4Mb of flash.

One of the largest such packages is the batman-adv  package.

So SECN 5 test firmware has only being produced for devices with 8Mb+ flash.

However simple meshes can be run using the "built in" 802.11s software which does not require an additional package.

We have produced a test firmware for the MR3020 device to run the VT-Rachel code with this simple mesh capability. This is specifically for use as a classroom digital library and router.

It is technically possible to produce SECN firmware that also uses the simple mesh routing that will fit in 4MB flash.

But I am not sure there is sufficient demand (and development resources) to warrant the amount of work involved in producing and maintaining another branch of code.

There seems to be little point in making new purchases of 4MB flash commodity devices with the intention of re-flashing them with OpenWrt.

It seems better to look at products that natively support OpenWrt and have adequate memory. Good examples are the Dragino MS14 and GLiNet AR150 and AR300M products. There are no doubt others as well.

Hope that helps explain.

Regards
Terry


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DE 'Tad' Heckaman III

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Apr 23, 2018, 12:40:20 AM4/23/18
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I've got an old MP deployment that needs fixing/replacement (it's on the other side of the planet so I don't know what's wrong with it, local resources suspect a power issue or a lightning strike). Regardless, I'd like to upgrade to something more modern. This is literally in a jungle with just Solar/batteries to power it (not full time), so looking for a power efficient outdoor ready unit that can mesh, and take unregulated input voltages. Doesn't need any phone support. What's the best hardware kit for this role? I'm familiar with Ubiquiti equipment, and we don't have very high speed internet at all, so don't really need super-high performance. I'm considering just deploying a Unifi Mesh, since it's a pretty small deployment, but I'm concerned about how the mesh would work long term without a controller to arrange the mesh between the individual units. 

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