Hi,
for those following the mailing list and other events around the B.A.T.M.A.N. team the term 'B.A.T.M.A.N. V' probably sounds all too familiar. It has been more than 5 years since the first ideas for improving the routing protocol were exchanged. In the following years we had several GSoC projects dedicated to pull this topic forward, countless hack & brainstorming sessions (including sleepless nights at each battlemesh). Turns out, replacing a mature protocol like B.A.T.M.A.N. IV takes more effort than you might think.
Another hurdle we kept running into was the missing separation between routing logic and feature code preventing any developer and/or tester to quickly switch from one protocol to the other. Now we have finally completed hiding all routing logic behind an internal API allowing to change the routing protocol while still benefiting from all the layer2 features.
With this mail the B.A.T.M.A.N. team announces the availability of the latest protocol revision: B.A.T.M.A.N. V. Major features are its throughput based path metric and packet type separation. For a high level overview about the differences to B.A.T.M.A.N. IV feel invited to continue reading[1]. Technical protocol specs also are available [2][3].
The code has already undergone stability and performance testing[4], thus is considered ready for a wider audience testing. In the coming weeks said patches will be included in the main source tree and sent upstream to the kernel maintainers. Comments and feedback are welcome!
Next steps involve finishing the throughout meter[5] to enrich B.A.T.M.A.N. V with an automatic link throughput detection when other mechanisms fail.
Happy routing, The B.A.T.M.A.N. team
[1] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/BATMAN_V [2] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/ELP [3] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Ogmv2 [4] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/BATMAN_V_Tests [5] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki/2012-10-06-GSoC-2012-Edo-M...