[OLSR-users] Re: Setting up OLSR for a complicated environment

[Jon Smirl]

On 2/8/07, Bernd Petrovitsch <(spam-protected)> wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 11:48 -0500, Jon Smirl wrote:
> > On 2/8/07, Bernd Petrovitsch <(spam-protected)> wrote:
> > > > Could I run my mesh nodes in Master mode and then use OLSR to set up
> > > > WDS links between them?
> > >
> > > I'm not a WDS expert. How are these links setup?
> >
> > WDS is a way of setting up links between stations running in Master
> > mode. My idea was to run all of my mesh nodes in Master mode and then
> > use OLSR to control the WDS links.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System
>
> If I understand this correctly, WDS extends the functionality of a
> "normal" access point so that it can talk directly with another
> WDS-enabled access point.
> And with WDS you have to "route"[0] packets from one client to another.
> If I understand it correctly it - thus - implements "routing" based on
> MAC-adresses (of the access points and clients).
> If this is the case, WDS must be (conceptually) part of the MAC-layer.
>
> Since this OLSRD is an pure user-space program and routes on the IP
> layer, it is not usable for this that easy AFAICS.
>
> Of course, there is room for a hack (if someone finds the time): Given
> that the access points run Linux (or other OSs with such features), one
> can hook into the MAC layer (with ebtables or an extension thereof) and
> get the requests into the user-space. And then one can implement the
> third "protocol" (after IPv4 and IPv6) which can be used.
> The algorithms etc. are in place and perfectly usable to use MAC
> addresses instead of IP addresses.

Access points are running Linux.

That's what I'm looking for, someone who had already figured out how
to use OLSR to control how WDS nodes get linked and routed. I didn't
want to try building this again if someone has already tried and found
that it won't work.

There are references to doing this in the mailing list archives but I
don't see any clear conclusions if anyone got it working or not.



-- 
Jon Smirl
(spam-protected)