[Olsr-dev] OSX AirDrop as a zero configuration link layer?

[Jeremy Lakeman]

We've got a couple of macbooks with OSX Lion installed and have spent
some time playing around with AirDrop. And it struck me that this zero
configuration, one hop radio link layer, could be ideal for building
an adhoc mesh network.

I haven't worked out anything about the actual radio layer, but while
you have a finder window open with an AirDrop view there's a new
network interface visible in the OS;

p2p[1-N]: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	ether 1a:1e:df:XX:XX:XX
	inet6 fe80::181e:dfff:feXX:XXXX%p2p[1-N] prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xa
	media: autoselect
	status: active

Over which the mac announces the availability of airdrop and your
machine's name, with link local mDNSv6 packets.

Admittedly I could probably setup a test myself to see if I could get
olsrd running over this network link. But I'm not certain when I'll be
able to find the time, and I thought I'd post a quick summary of my
findings somewhere to see if anyone else was interested in the idea.