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Domain: locustworld.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to locustworld.com.

Comments · 56

  1. Locustworld MeshAP is what you're looking for by no_such_user · · Score: 5, Informative · on Building a Free Wireless Backbone?
    Locustworld is a great starting point. This project needs more press. From their site:

    Our mission is simple. We like this wireless technology, there is a huge potential in free community networks, as idealised by www.communitywireless.org We will research and make this technology available to everyone at the lowest cost we can. Wherever possible, this will be at the cost of parts. In other words, we're working totally for free here, even charity workers get paid! Where required, we will also help by providing live prototype networks and application development. Our primary interest is simply in providing the enabling technology to make this dream work. All the plans for building or modifying all our units will eventually be available as will the software itself. We hope to distribute this under an opensource license so that others can improve our work.

    Their goal is to provide free software to setup just the type of wireless community network you're looking for. Though their software package can be used with generic hardware, they're also selling a specialized embedded-esque box explictly for use with this project.

    In NYC, the NYCwireless group has a "wireless cloud" SIG which is (slowly?) trying to accomplish just this task.

    Good luck!
  2. RTFM - here it is. by NKJensen · · Score: 2 · on Embedded Linux Wi-Fi Mesh Router On Sale

    It is a MS Word document, but this answers my own questions

  3. What is a "Community Mesh"? by foofboy · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Embedded Linux Wi-Fi Mesh Router On Sale

    There's a documentation download link here, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm baffled. Everyone is discussing it as though it were a wireless internet access route, but the Newbie Quick Start only mentions cell phone text messaging. What the hell is it, and what is it supposed to do? Is "Locust" a particular "Community Mesh Network"? Is a "Community Mesh Network" an architecture making use of standard protocols? What services does a Community Mesh Network offer? Are the any Community Mesh users or admins who can speak up?

  4. Details about how it works: by osolemirnix · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Turn-key Mesh Routing Access Point
    can be found in the Mesh AP Documentation.
    Essentially all nodes that have an internet connection on eth0 broadcast the fact that they are a gateway into the real internet. This model extends by hops, out into the WIFI mesh network.
    So all the system does, is route you to the internet via a path with the fewest hops. It does not provide interconnectivity between WIFI nodes themselves at all (they are all NATed). It does not provide a handover from one cell to the next as you move, so it just works for stationary nodes. It just offers a multi-hop VPN to the nearest AP with a "real" internet connection, adding a NAT layer with every hop out.
    This is pretty cool, but still a far cry away from spontaneous self-organizing WIFI-only networks, where there is no "root gateway" and no hierarchy as in this case (which is one of the problems).

    A short excerpt from the doc before it gets slashdotted:

    The software provided, the "Mesh AP", is designed to be run on a node, eg a system designed to serve others. It has the dual purpose of also connecting in to the network. So even if you are just a repeater and using the software to reach the Internet, you are also providing an extension to the mesh and a standard DHCP cell for any non-mesh clients which wish to sign on.

    The software boots, it then allocates itself an address, typically in the 10.x.x.x range. Initially the allocated address is random.

    Then, it attempts to find an internet gateway, first probing 192.168.1.1/255.255.128.0 and then using a DHCP client on the Ethernet interface to try to sign on to a gateway. If no gateway can be found, the software considers that it has only wireless links and is a repeater-cell.

    The cell starts an internal dns server and transparent web proxy on port 80 and 8080, a dhcp server is also started an a random class C network is picked in the range 192.168.128.0/255.255.128.0

    Clients connecting to the dhcp cell are pointed to the wireless interface for default gateway and dns server. The dns server running on the repeater always returns the address of the gateway, no matter what domain name is resolved.

    At this point, the node still cannot serve clients, but it will sign them on.

    Meanwhile, the kernel AODV(11) module is loaded and the node then finds neighbour cells in its local range by sending/receiving UDP packets to the broadcast address.

    Any cells within the mesh which are gateways, periodically broadcast a route to a bogus address which implies an internet gateway. This route is repeated outwards in a "ring" fashion as per the AODV protocol.

    Any cell without a gateway receiving this address then attempts to establish a compressed encrypted IP-tunnel VPN via the "vtund" package. Compression uses LZO and encryption is blowfish. (ip ranges 172.16.x.x)

    This IP tunnel could be over multiple hops to the destination gateway, AODV handles the optimised routing between linked cells. Eg, multi-hop routes eg.

    The cell then switches all its outbound dns and ip traffic to go via this VPN gateway link. The DHCP configuration is also updated to now serve the remote gateway address as a dns server (gateway nodes run a real dns proxy) - Any clients who signed on before the link was found will forward traffic to the local cell which will proxy it via http proxy etc, any clients signing on after a gateway is found will receive the remote gateway details and will have full IP routing.

    Any client signing directly on to a cell which has a local internet gateway will go directly via that gateway.

  5. Re:Phones by juxter · · Score: 1 · on Pittsburgh Launches Large, Free, Public WiFi Network

    Not such a far fetched idea... As part of the UK project, communitywireless we are already using modified Compaq Ipaq PDA's as phones (nicknamed 'Sunseekers'). Using a custom protocol developed by Locust Technologies and open-source software, we have succesfully made P2P VoIP calls. Check out LocustWorld for a range of the kit we're developing... we already have a wide service area in London N6... and it's all Not-for-profit!

  6. Just two antenna? by infractor · · Score: 1 · on Pittsburgh Launches Large, Free, Public WiFi Network
    This is of course great news, whenever people talk about free networks and do something about it...

    Two antenna, however, does not make a huge wireless network IMHO.

    The Highgate test network communitywireless.org is bigger than this! If you're interested in that an the mobile hardware they're using, check out locustworld.com