[OLSR-users] Mesh not meshing

[John Gorkos]

Well, after almost 9 months of planning, I'm beginning deployment of my mesh 
network, based on WRT54Gs and OLSR.  But, I'm not seeing the mesh network 
forming correctly.

Here are my OLSR settings for each router:
DEBUG           0
IPVERSION       4
INTERFACES      eth1
LOAD_PLUGIN     olsrd_dot_draw.so.0.1
IP4BROAD        auto
IP6ADDRTYPE     site-local
IP6MULTI-SITE   auto
IP6MULTI-GLOBAL auto
POLLRATE        auto
HELLOINT        auto
HELLOMULTI      auto
TCINT           auto
TCMULTI         auto
NWHELLOINT      auto
NWHELLOMULTI    auto
MIDINT          auto
MIDMULTI        auto
HNAINT          auto
HNAMULTI        auto
TOSVALUE        auto
WILLINGNESS     auto
IPC-CONNECT     no
USE_HYSTERESIS  yes
HYST_SCALING    auto
HYST_THR_HIGH   auto
HYST_THR_LOW    auto
TC_REDUNDANCY   auto
MPR_COVERAGE    auto

Right now, I've got 4 nodes:  a single gateway node and 4 very widely 
dispersed mesh nodes.  Each mesh node can "see" the gateway (call it .1), but 
none of them are getting the gateway added to the routing table. Right now, 
the nodes can ONLY see the gateway, due to the terrain and buildings, and 
they cannot see each other.  The gateway is actually a debian linux box with 
a standard ethernet card connected to a wireless bridge (a smartBridges 
airBridge Outdoor).
To elaborate, the four nodes are these:
192.168.7.1 gateway
192.168.7.20 mesh node at bottom of tower (next to gateway)
192.168.7.21 mesh node at customer 1 location
192.168.7.25  mesh node at customer 2 location

I should THINK that the routing table of .7.1 would have host routes to .7.20, 
7.21, and .7.25, but those routes are not there.  Furthermore, I cannot ping 
from node-to-node, but I can ping from each node to the gateway and vice 
versa.

Am I missing something painfully obvious?  I'm ready to bring on more 
customers that will REQUIRE the use of the mesh to get to the gateway, and 
I'm stalling because it doesn't seem to be working.  Pretty soon my backers 
are going to pull out if I can't make this work.

John Gorkos