Pretoria Mesh

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The CSIR Pretoria mesh network was setup as a test-bed mesh network in order to get an understanding of the issues that face real-world, outdoor mesh networks. Some of these issues include LOS (Line of Sight), Weather Proofing and the Hidden Node problem.

Below is a diagram showing the current status of the mesh network, green nodes show people who are currently connected, red nodes show people who would like to be connected in the future

Pta-mesh3.jpg


Visualisation

Nodes

      • Please fill in information about your node e.g. Equipment, Placement (Rooftop), Hardware etc.

Koppie Node

Rodricks Node

Davids Node

Karels Node

Louis Node

Andrews Node

Johns Node

Johanns Node

Want to join the Pretoria Mesh?

1. Visit NodeDB and create a node for yourself.
2. Build a node. Read the HowTos for more information on building your own node.
3. Get Pretoria Mesh Settings and configure your node.

Log of changes to the network

30 January 2006 Elardus Park went down at 5:50PM (omni and directional) after a heavy raintorm - I'll climb up tomorrow morning and have a look.

1 May 2006 I noticed that the elardus park tower would often lose its routing information for the elardus park mesh so I did a bit of research on the olsrd.conf file. Here is what I discovered

The /usr/local/etc/olsrd.conf file had the following settings

HelloInterval           3.0
HelloValidityTime       9.0 (default 3xHelloInterval)
TCInterval              5.0
TCValidityTime          15.0 (default)
MidInterval             5.0 (default)
MidValidityTime         15.0 (default)
HnaInterval             5.0
HnaValidityTime         15.0

With the validity times being so short, a large file downnload would saturate the traffic and occasionally not allow a hello packet through allowing the routing info to expire after the validity time which was 15 seconds for TC

I changed the interval settings to those found in Freifunk firmware which are better suited for static meshes like ours, the intervals were set to:

HelloInterval           5.0
HelloValidityTime       90.0
TcInterval              15.0
TcValidityTime          90.0
MidInterval             15.0
MidValidityTime         90.0
HnaInterval             15.0
HnaValidityTime         90.0

Lets hope the network is more stable now!