[OLSR-users] Question about address assignment

[(spam-protected)]

Greetings,

The OLSR code seems to be well written and solid.  I have a question
about assignment of IP addresses and how addresses are handled by
the UniK OLSR daemon.

I am running olsrd on Linux machines using an Ethernet interface
because I currently have no wireless devices.

Section 11.1 of RFC 3626 says:
The nodes in the MANET network SHOULD be assigned addresses within a
defined address sequence, i.e., the nodes in the MANET SHOULD be
addressable through a network address and a netmask. 

I understand that this is done to enable us to advertise routes
from the OLSR MANET into other routing domains, but that it is not
a requirement.  

I also understand that generally in a MANET there are no requirements
as to how addresses are assigned and there may be nodes from different
"IP subnets" in the same MANET.

I have the following setup:

         Linux        Eth          Linux
        -------      switch       -------
        |     |      -----        |     |
        |  X  |______|   |________|  Y  |
        |     |      |   |        |     |
        -------      -----        -------

When workstations X and Y are on the same IP subnet (192.168.77.0), 
OLSR works fine.  When they are on differing subnets (X = 192.168.87.0
Y = 192.168.97.0) OLSR doesn't work at all.

Is this because of the way olsrd is implemented or is it due to the
way routing works on Linux, or is my understanding incorrect?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Richard Herron
L-3 Communications