[Olsr-users] OLSR without ad-hoc mode?

[Robert Linden]

Hello!

I'm new to the whole wifi-meshing topic. Do I understand it correctly that OLSR works basically like this:

- each node connects to the same ad-hoc network, with a pre-configured unique IP address
- each node broadcasts the addresses of all the other nodes it can see
- each node collects this information and builds its own dynamic routing table

Does that sum it up, in principle?

My question now is: does (or can) something like that work with wifi modules that don't support
ad-hoc networking, but only infrastructure modes? Would it work with 2 wifi modules, where one
acts as an AP and one as a client? I guess in this case we would have the additional challenge
of deciding to which network to connect in order to avoid a split in two (or more) disconnected
sub meshes, right? But if the number/names of all nodes would be fixed and known I think the
nodes could detect such a split and work out different topologies until everything is connected?

Is that possible with OLSR? Or are there other tools that can handle such a scenario?
Maybe even with only one physical wifi interface? This (old) answer here suggests that it's
possible to be a client and AP at the same time. https://superuser.com/a/155836/768623
It seems that hostapd is the right tool for something like that?

Thanks a lot for any pointer to documentation about that topic!

All the best,
rob