[Olsr-dev] Idea for a new plugin

[Gregor Glashüttner]

Hello everybody!

When the uplink of funkfeuer went down (a long time ago), i thought
about setting up a decentralized instant messaging software but the
programs available didn´t receive any acceptance (were not available
for the OS of choice, were too complicated to set up etc.). Even
though we have multiple uplinks by now, i still think it is a good
idea to have a possibility to (at least) chat with the others on the
net, even if the mesh isn´t connected to the internet. So i thought
about reinventing the wheel... Since olsr is capable of flooding
arbitrary messages over the net, why not use it to transport text
messages? Using a simple webchat-interface on the routers themselves
would eliminate the need of installing any additional software on
participant´s computers.
I already talked to Aaron about it, and coded that interface (using
javascript on the client, which i "learned" a _little_ that way, and
shell on the router itself) for freifunk-firmware. I read
http://www.olsr.org/docs/olsrd-plugin-howto.html but am afraid it is a
little too much for me - i know nothing about C. Anyone interested in
coding that stuff? It only needs to read from one text file (line by
line) and hand the messages to olsr and write received messages to
another text file respectively (increasing a counter in a third file).
If the "inbox" reaches a certain size, it should also delete oldest
messages from that file.
If anybody is interested in developing such a plugin i would be very
happy to tell more details and send a copy of the webinterface.

BTW: Thanks for the constant improvements on olsr everybody!

Gregor