[WLANware] [Fwd: [Kontaktaufnahme] new mesh firmware full working on 3.3M of flash!!!!]

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Subject: [Kontaktaufnahme] new mesh firmware full working on 3.3M of
flash!!!!
From: martincampff (at) gmail (dot) com

martin campff hat eine Nachricht mit dem Kontaktformular auf
http://start.freifunk.net/contact geschickt.

http://www.lugro.org.ar/nightwing/en/

One of the projects of the group is the firmware Nightwing, wich allows
the creation of fast deployment wireless mesh networks with minimal human
intervention.

Currently it's intended for devices that have an Atheros AP51 wireless
chip. Such devices are the La Fonera, Meraki Mini, Ubiquiti NanoStation,
Ubiquiti PowerStation and Ubiquiti LittleStation among others. Expecially
those devices that have 4MB of Flash memory and 16MB of RAM memory, wich
is the most frecuent configuration found in the market.

The main features are this:

   * 0-config: You only need to power-on the device and it will configure
automatically. It will asume it's rol and conect to others devices that it
founds. If it has Internet access to share it will be a gateway node, if
not it will be a client node. If a node doesn't have it's own Internet
connection but can contact to one or more neighbors that are gateway
nodes, himself can provide Internet access. It will do it by wireless and
ethernet connection.
   * Public Connection Interface: This kind of connection is not
encrypted, it's intended for unknown users. This connection is managed by
the captive portal NoDogSplash, wich is in charge of the security and the
administration of the Internet access. The users of the public network are
isolated from them self and from the rest of the mesh, they can only access
to the Internet.
   * Private Connection Interface: This kind of connection in encrypted
(WAP2), so to be able to use it you must know the access key. It's
intended for known users and it isn't managed by a captive portal.
   * OpenDNS: The DNS service is based in the free service that the
company provides. This choice adds the possibility to delegate in this
service other configuration aspects like content filtering of web pages,
domain blocking, phising protection and much more (by the moment it's only
used for the DNS services, the implementation of the others services that
OpenDNS provides it's in the project's TO-DO list).
   * Thinked for Security: The development of Nightwing takes account
security from the very beginning of its development. The nightwing nodes
provide security to the internal network and to the clients that connect
to the nodes, so who decides to be a gateway node can trust that his
internal network won't be compromised. So too, who decides to connect to
the nodes through the LAN, can be sure that whoever connects wirelessly
will not be able to access them. To avoid security problems when two or
more clients connects wirelessly, some mechanisms have been anticipated
that will prevent that they can see each other. This way, if it can't see
it, it can't atack it.
   * Few Hardware Requirements: Nightwing, besides requiring an Atheros
AP51 wireless chip, only needs a minimun of 4MB of Flash memory and 16MB
of RAM memory. This is why the amount of devices that can be used is
bigger.



To make Nightwing we choose the GNU/Linux distribution OpenWRT
(http://downloads.openwrt.org/kamikaze/), in it's release Kamikaze 7.09
(at this moment we are using the unstable version r10736). For the routing
protocol we choose B.A.T.M.A.N (www.open-mesh.net/batman), wich is meant
for wireless mesh networks. We also use, as a starting point, one of the
early versions of Ro.B.In. (http://www.blogin.it/), but currently we have
our own and different design. We are greatful with the ideas aported by
the Ro.B.In. project, sense it allowed us to understand the basic
operation of the implementation of B.A.T.M.A.N. In the design of the
system, we saw that we want it to make things in a simpler manner and that
the source code could be self-explained, that's why we develop Nightwing.