Hi Marek, thanks for the reply.
El 10/01/2012 08:00 a.m., b.a.t.m.a.n-request@lists.open-mesh.org escribió:
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 20:22:37 +0800 From: Marek Lindnerlindner_marek@yahoo.de To: "The list for a Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking" b.a.t.m.a.n@lists.open-mesh.org Subject: Re: [B.A.T.M.A.N.] problem with mesh network Message-ID:201201092022.37637.lindner_marek@yahoo.de Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi,
We are using batman-adv 2011.2.0 with Openwrt Backfire-rc6 on D-Link Dir-615 routers (2 Antennas, 1 single radio), each router with an adhoc interface managed by batman-adv for the mesh network and an Acces Point interface bridged with bat0 and ethernet to allow non batman-adv clients to connect. The problem is that sometimes all works fine, but sometimes we get very poor bitrates between routers, even using just two routers, testing with iperf. We don't know where the problem is, specially because it's a very erratic behavior. If any of you have used this configuration with openwrt and ath9k driver we'd really appreciate some help.
this does not sound like a batman issue. Did you try contacting the ath9k/linux-wireless/openwrt developers ?
Yes, we suspected it could be a TX dma problem, because occasionally we found that error in the logs, so we followed some openwrt tickets related with that, but we're not sure that's the problem, and anyway it has not been solved yet. We've also asked on ath9k list about the driver debug files in case we could find something there, but they did't answered, I guess it's hard to explain in a mail list. We haven't asked to linux-wireless, maybe it would be better, since it could be something on top of the driver.
By the way, the D-Link Dir-615 is an n router, but for some reason related with hostapd the ap vif gets configured in g mode, and the adhoc in n mode, no matter what we set in the uci files. So in case the problem were related with the adhoc and ap virtual interface, we were thinking about the possibility of setting the mesh network without using adhoc mode. In that case each router should have one ap for non batman-adv clients, and two additional interfaces, one in ap and the other managed, these two used to connect with other routers via batman-adv, would that be correct? In that case, you think this configuration could be more or less stable than the other using adhoc mode?
batman-adv does not care how you configure your interfaces. Using managed/AP with batman-adv on top works as well. However, you will need to configure each managed/AP setup manually which will be cumbersome in a larger network and has no failover. A single failure in your managed/AP chain will bring down all nodes depending on it.
We were thinking in a script that managed the stations to connect to the different APs to avoid configuring each router manually. However we realized that with just one managed interface, each router could connect to only one AP, so if we wanted that every router could connect bidirectionally to others we should use a number of managed interfaces enough to connect to all neigbours, shouldn't we? In any case it would be just another test to see if the results are different.
Gabriel