Meshcube: A New Mesh-Routing Wireless Device

jazzgroove writes "The Meshcube is a new wireless mesh routing device based on open source technologies. It's quite feature rich with support for VPN and IPSEC which come from the meshcube distribution. Apparently you can buy the device as a kit and build it yourself or buy it pre-built. For more information have a look at the wiki."

Comments

Nice.. but expensive!

[Mz6]

For those of us in the US

"Especially for communities we offer the meshcube as a kit which can easily be assembled. Prices start at 199,90 EUR. The kit comes without antennas to allow highest flexibility to the lowest possible price."

= $241.98

"For those who want to start meshing right away this true linux-device can also be ordered readily assembled - prices starting at 239,90 EUR."

= $290.62

Calculated as of this morning.

Okay, I get the idea

[Matey-O]

And can see the potential disruptive technology here, but what's this good for?

(yeah yeah, buy a bunch and have connectivity everywhere, but a) not at $250 a piece, and b) not by joe sixpack)

Right now, it doesn't seem to add more to the picture than a $70 Linksys WRT54g. (and THAT at least has a 4 port switch along with the broadcom chipset)

Re:Okay, I get the idea

[teemu.s]

64 MB Ram, PoE (802.3af), smaller dimensions, 400 MHz Mips CPU ..

Re:Okay, I get the idea

[LondonLawyer]

Pretty much what I was thinking. The 'London Wireless State of Play' story which was on Slashdot a few weeks back had some interesting geek density calculations which help explain why the Consume mesh project hasn't really taken off here yet. Kits like this need to be cheap to buy and easy to use so that they can become ubiquitous. This doesn't look to be either.

Re:Okay, I get the idea

[Jeff DeMaagd]

along with the broadcom chipset

Unless you are a fan of broadcom or something, I don't see how this is necessarily a selling point.

This meshcube does have a pile of miniPCI slots which I think would be useful for many point-to-point relays to set up a mesh (one for service, four for connecting to adjacent lattice points) in contrast, a similar setup using that model Linksys would require five of them.

Re:Okay, I get the idea

[div_2n]

Because Mesh can reduce the cost of proliferating wireless access over any area even and especially in a building and provide for high levels of administration. Consider:

-Mesh nodes have the power to be aware of other nodes and auto power so they don't cause excessive interference with each other.

-You only have to deploy one piece of equipment to spread the signal instead of running wires to the new location and/or having a wireless bridge connected to an AP.

-It is scalable and upgradable. You only need swap wireless devices or add in a new one to take advantage of new wireless technologies and/or have multiple frequencies in one device.

-They are completely flexible so that you can setup any network topology you want as opposed to off the shelf WAP's that are extremely limited in ability.

-The flexibility allows for amazing abilities to monitor and control all functions and activities on the APs.

-You control whether there are backdoor accounts.

That should get you started.

Re:Okay, I get the idea

[Tarwn]

Think wireless in large areas. You set up a mesh network over a square mile or more and you want to make sure that even if a device or two goes down someone would still be able to make a connection (self-healing as it were). Thats where wireless mesh networking comes into play.
Obviously you wouldn't have the need for this type of equipment in your home anymore than I would try to go out and setup up a large wireless MAN with Linksys home units...unless you wanted to take advantage of the fact that mesh nodes generally are higher power than your standard home node, in which case you would have better distance for your connections.

Intel tested centrino tech in their labs to be useable to 91m, I know a tech who is currently setting up a mesh network with another companies mesh nodes that has gotten plus 300m [i]through 2 houses[/i].

I don't expect Joe Sixpack to set up a mesh network (mesh would imply more than one node) because I wouldn't expect Joe sixpack to setup a neighborhood network, same difference.

-T

What is a MeshCube?

[Pedrito]

I mean, the little picture looks cool and all. That tiny box with two antennas sticking out of it. But what exactly is it? You can't really tell from the web page.

Is it an access point? A router? A bridge? What? I'm sure if I spent more than 10 minutes digging through the page, I might find something, but I lost patience trying to figure it out.

If they're going to sell these things, they might try a list of the features and maybe a general description of what it is. The article post had more information than the web page.

Re:What is a MeshCube?

[popeydotcom]

It's an access point that can be joined with other access points to form a "Mesh". So for example you can put a bunch of them in a town and share one or two internet connections to people who dont have such a connection. Also useful for networking over distances that one single AP wouldn't cover (by chaining them together through the airwaves).

Jon Anderson pioneered this with his boxen, see http://www.locustworld.com/

Re:What is a MeshCube?

[Chep]

It's an embedded Linux box with miniPCI ports, a processor and a distro on it. What you can do with a (slightly vintage) PC and a bunch of PCI WLAN cards, you can do with a Meshcube and a bunch of miniPCI WLAN cards, provided that you can shoe-horn your software into the provided 32-64MB of solid-state storage, or are content with an external USB-attached hard drive. I guess the correct answer then is "router", "AP" or "bridge" depending on what actual software you put on it.

It seems to have much, much much more room than a WRT54G/GS, but it sure is quite pricier (the Linksys units are around EUR 90 and 110 incl. VAT respectively, though the GS is only now supposed to come out of pre-order).

From the energy point of view, 4W for all they say the MeshCube does certainly looks very nice.

Nice product - terrible price...

[Shoeler]

It makes Linksys' WRT54G look like an amazing bargain - especially because this runs a MIPS processor, has the same amount of RAM, and there's a (purportedly) bigger developer base for the WRT54G...

And the Linksys can be had on ebay for $100.

Re:Nice product - terrible price...

[borroff]

And if I'm not mistaken, there are already a number of alternative OSes for the Linksys. Why not hack the linksys to add mesh features instead?

Re:Nice product - terrible price...

[cibus]

This has been done. OLSR(http://www.olsr.org) packages are avalible for OpenWrt(http://openwrt.ksilebo.net)

Hardware Specs

[sudohnim]

* 400MHz MIPS processor AMD Au1500 aka Alchemy
* 64 MB RAM
* 32 MB Flash
* 100Mbps Ethernet
* Power Over Ethernet Standard IEEE 802.3af
* USB host
* USB device
* up to 8 MiniPCI devices, the base unit comes with one dual adapter
* WLAN cards with RP-SMA connectors
* Small Size 7x5x7 cm
* Low power consumption 4W
* No moving parts
* one (hidden) DebugConnector with serial port and EJTAG

http://www.soekris.com

[puzzled]

Before buying a meshcube you might want to take a look at http://www.soekris.com

I have two pairs of the Net 4511 machines as wireless bridges and a spare that I use for play. I've made OpenBSD fit into 16 meg of flash using the OpenSoekris script. There is a Linux based appliance type OS from http://www.mikrotik.com that also runs on the platform and it does all sorts of Magic(tm).

This is an interesting announcement but Soekris has the track record to judge by the amount of talk about them on the wireless ISP mailing lists.

Re:http://www.soekris.com

[evilviper]

Although I've been admiring Soekris boxes lately, I don't think they are a good fit for this... You can only plug in one Cardbus/PCMCIA card, and a MiniPCI device if you want, and that's $200... Meanwhile, the MeshCube says it has room for 8 MiniPCI cards...

The Soekris boxes only have low-end processors, in the 233MHz range... A 400MHz MIPS processor should be faster (not sure of that), although x86 compatiblity is a good plus for Soekris.

The MeshCube claims to have (slightly) lower power consumption than the Soekris as well.

Original WIKI Entry

[Mz6]

This is before the trolls got to it...

MeshCube OpenSource Distribution

This will become the main site for the MeshCube OpenSource distribution. (Until we have set up our webshop at http://www.meshcube.com, we also abuse the domain meshcube.org for hosting our order form.)

The MeshCube is a new hardware platform dedicated to WirelessLAN mesh routing, developed by [http://www.4g-systems.biz 4G Systems, Hamburg]. With a 400MHz ["MIPS"] processor, 64MB RAM and 32MB flash, and up to 8 MiniPCI cards, it is powerful enough to provide excellent security and encryption, and flexible enough for custom applications and modifications. See http://meshcube.org/english/specs.html or HardwareSpecs for more details about the hardware.

The MeshCubeDistribution is the Linux distribution running on the MeshCube. Its main features are MeshRouting, autoconfiguration of networking, an emphasis on security (IpSec, VPN), and a compact design (to fit on the 32MB flash). It is completely licensed under the GPL and will be developed here in our CVS in true Open Source manner. We happily accept patches and additions, but please be patient -- it takes some time to evaluate patches and import sources into CVS.

We have set up several mailing lists for communication related to the project. Please subscribe here. We've also set up a Bugzilla (bug tracking system); please use it to report any bugs you may encounter.

There is a feed of packages you can use to install new software on your cube and to update your installation. See HowTo/InstallPackages for instructions.

This wiki is free to edit for anyone and currently divided into four sections: HowTo, MeshRouting, HardWare and SoftWare.

Frequently Asked Questions

CVS

Mailinglists

Bugzilla

DownLoad

I have not found any hint on this wiki to an IRC-Channel for people which uses the meshcube, so i opend one. madd.

* Server:......irc.freenode.net

* Channel:...#meshcube

Re:Nice work Timmy.

[sploo22]

I mean, come on now, a Wiki isn't a discussion forum, it wouldn't be terrible to have to wait even 24 hours before something updates...

Actually, yes, it can be. The whole point of a Wiki is flexibility. It can be used as a discussion board, chat room, encyclopedia, whatever. If you constantly have to have people approving everything, effective collaboration goes right out the window.

What they should have done was temporarily lock down editing once the page was slashdotted, and unlocked it once the hits died down.

meshcubes

[throwaway18]

I saw one of these last November at an event in London attended by a lot of the consume.net people. The photo does not do justice to how small it is, about 3" by 3" by 1". It can be powered up the cat 5 so it would be relativly easy to mount one on a roof.

The software is based on debian. Christian Car told me that "egiht hops and there is no bandwidth left" which means my dreams of city wide mesh networks are going to need somthing resembling network planning. The biggest obstacle I can see at the moment is that there are literally tens of thousands of access points in London. Access points transmit several bursts a second even when they are not transfering any data. It is possible to do five mile links between convinient points but even with high gain antennas the peers will still hear lots of access points announcing away plus all the other stuff in the 2.4GHz band.

The company is half a dozen geeks. They have great technology but don't seem to grasp the importance of documenting it and having a good website with lots of info on what it does and how to use it. I mailed them eight months ago say "everyone thought it looked really cool in the transparent case, at least put a picture on your website!". The biggest barrier to mesh network seems to be a people problem rarther than a technologial one. Getting a mesh net running requires alpha geek level network and computer knowledge. We have enough alpha geeks. We need more people who can recruit people and get access to sites for nodes and organise the geeks.

also look at

[mo]

For an alternative, check out the linksys wrt54g and the wrt54gs.
Linksys has released the full source code and build environment to these routers enabling you to extend the linux install that these are based on.

These devices are not as powerful as the meshbox, but they are much cheaper. They also have more ethernet ports to add a switch/dmz/whatever, although there's only a single wireless device.

Multiple projects have sprung up to extend the functionality of these routers, along with a bunch of informational sites about other hacking projects

Re:what is this used for exactly?

[j1m 5n0w]

Typical consumer-grade access points allow you to set up networks that involve a single wireless hop (from the client to the AP). Most APs don't know how to talk to each other wirelessly - if you want a bigger network than a single AP can cover, you have to string ethernet cable between the access points. This is frequently inconvenient, especially when the network spans a large area.

Mesh networks use one of the many ad-hoc routing protocols (such as AODV, DSR, TORA, or DSDV) to decide the optimal path for each packet to travel (where optimal might mean shortest path, most reliable path, fewest number of expected transmissions, etc).

In theory, they are also easier to set up.

Also, having a "hackable" AP has benefits of its own - you can set up a captive portal, or a web server, or a web proxy, or a print server, or a file server, or anything else that might not come standard on a commodity access point.

-jim