[OLSR-users] Getting started with OLSR

[Mike McKay]

OLSRers-

Allow me to lay out my situation:

I live in Malawi, Africa. Getting a very dodgy dialup internet 
connection for just 30 minutes per day will cost about $150 dollars a 
month. Thanks to satellite internet (VSAT) equipment no longer needed in 
many parts of the US, I have found cheap VSAT hardware which I am in the 
process of hooking up. Once set up it should cost a couple hundred 
dollars a month for a decent always on connection. I also have 3 WRT54Gs.

I would like to build a wireless mesh network to cover my city 
(Lilongwe), and perhaps take it further if possible. But first I would 
like to start with my neighborhood.

I have read the Wireless Hacks book, and done plenty of googling, but I 
would love to hear some suggestions on what are the must read docs - 
they must be out there, because I don't quite have my head around it all 
yet.

On my 3 WRT54Gs I have installed the Friefunk firmware, which is based 
on OpenWRT, and has OLSR ready to run on it. I managed to plug in via 
ethernet two laptops to two different WRT54Gs with one acting as an 
internet gateway and it worked - I could surf the web from both laptops. 
This was pretty easy and very cool - but I had pretty much just followed 
the instructions here: 
http://csircoin.blogspot.com/2005/07/few-tips-with-olsr-on-openwrt-freifunk.html

This is all good but I want more. My perfect mesh would work something 
like this:

Take a bunch of Freifunked WRT54Gs and disperse them around the 
neighborhood, preferable on rooftops with antennas. Some of these would 
be connected to VSAT systems and therefore provide a route to the web. 
Then whoever wants to jump on the mesh, just turns on their machine and 
connects to the ad-hoc network supplied by the mesh.

Is this possible? So far, I get the feeling that every client on the 
mesh needs to be running the OLSR software, unless that client is 
connecting via one of the ethernet interfaces on a WRT54G. This makes 
sense I guess, but I just want to make sure I am not missing something. 
I am able to connect to the ad-hoc network with my windows laptop, using 
the builtin wireless software (i.e. no OLSR), but then I am unable to 
ping anything - including the router that it connected to.

If I have to install the OLSR software on every client, then that is 
fine. I have installed the OLSR Switch software on my box, but I haven't 
successfully discovered any routes with it, let alone shared a 
connection or browsed the web.

Questions:
1) Am I on the right track? Is this the best practice/hacker/cheap way 
to build a community network?
2) Assuming yes on 1, how do I put roll out a simple but effective OLSR 
deployment?
3) What am I doing wrong with OLSR Switch, and how do I debug?

Thanks in advance - I am very excited about the possibilities here.

Mike