Hello Eric,
generally, an interface must be up and active to send or receive data. If an interface is not active, it can not interact and would be useless.
BATMAN will only detect other BATMAN nodes by periodically sending OGM packets (default: each second). Other nodes will receive these messages through their active interfaces and thus know that these nodes are there. Other computers without BATMAN software can still communicate via the mesh if they are configured correctly and announced through the mesh by the BATMAN nodes. (These announcement are called HNA and are also available in other routing protocols).
As you see, there is no chicken-egg problem because interfaces must always be up to be used. I hope this brings some light in the discovery process.
best regards, Simon
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 08:09:28AM -0500, Conner, Eric wrote:
Simon
thanks for the insight, and actually that is what I originally thought that a mesh routing protocol would do for me. But my question still remains, how do I configure my linux box so that it uses batmand to discover the other computers that aren't part of the network?
batmand tells me it wants an active network interface to attach to (like wlan0, or eth1). But now I have a chicken and egg problem. I can't discover other nodes with the mesh routing protocol because I have no active network interface, but I need a network interface to find other nodes to connect to...
I know I am still missing some key ingredient. I guess the important thing is just how do you configure the linux box to auto-discover a network, or moreover how do I configure batmand to auto-discover a network?
Thanks Eric
-----Original Message----- From: b.a.t.m.a.n-bounces@lists.open-mesh.net [mailto:b.a.t.m.a.n-bounces@lists.open-mesh.net] On Behalf Of Simon Wunderlich Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 6:25 PM To: The list for a Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking Subject: [BULK] Re: [B.A.T.M.A.N.] required network to run Importance: Low
Hello Eric,
the basic idea of meshing in general is: the destination nodes are probably not in the coverage area of your radio, but you still want to talk to these nodes. For example, imagine a city network where all nodes are connected to each other: You wifi cards signal is only strong enough for the next "neighbor", so you pass the traffic to the next neighbor, which will foward it again until it has reached your destination.
This means you don't "see" all nodes in a network, and you need a mesh routing program like batman to discover other nodes and find correct routes to them via other nodes.
If you have all nodes in one little room, you don't need a routing daemon, of course. :)
best regards, Simon
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 04:30:51PM -0500, Conner, Eric wrote:
I am new to ad-hoc mobile networking, and have a few questions. I am just a little confused as to where batman fits in. Why do I need an active network to attach the batmand to? If I'm in a network can't I see all the other nodes already? What is batman buying for me if I
have
to create my own ad-hoc network? If I don't have to create my own ad-hoc network, how do I set up my linux boxes so that they have an active network that will discover the nodes and allow the batmand to run?
Thanks for your help Eric
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