[wsfii-discuss] med-mesh, a proposal to obtain funding from the EU

Fri Feb 3 04:19:02 UTC 2012

On 02/03/2012 08:25 AM, vortex at free2air.net wrote:

>>  3 ways of getting access:
>> a-. Inside some mesh clouds direct gateway is obtained trough the 
>> routing protocol
>
> Could you explain what that means? Which routing protocol and what do 
> you mean by 'mesh clouds'?

I assume that e.g. OLSR is used as a routing protocol on the air and you 
announce 0.0.0.0 inside the mesh.

The host announcing 0.0.0.0 then will route and/or NAT to the Internet.

This is what's happening in Vienna and Graz (FunkFeuer).

Preferably, community networks also get public IP space (PI) and BGP4 
uplinks to the Internet, to have a *real* network connected to the 
Internet, not a mesh hidden behind a NAT...

>
>> b-. Some VPN links to local ISP facilities or user-owned adsl
>
> Again, what does that mean? I would really like an overview of how 
> that VPN architecture works, whether user owned or ISP facility based.

That's the way Freifunk do it in Berlin as I understand: You don't have 
a single Internet gateway, but several users sponsoring (part of) their 
DSL connectivity... This works for TCP connections that are NATed as 
long as the default route doesn't change...

In Graz, we're also using VPNs to connect "islands" where there is no 
direct radio link (yet) available. Experience shows that with the mesh 
network organically growing and bridging the former "islands", the VPN 
eventually becomes obsolete...

>
>> c-. Most users uses the proxy in their area, seetled by hand in their 
>> browsers, but a firefox plugin was created to makes this easier
>>
>>     Do you have to manually define which one to use on each client?
>>
>
> Again how does a Firefox plugin assist in all this?

I'm also curious about this.

But honestly I don't think that a community network should have to rely 
on browser plugins for proper routing. That should be transparent to the 
users...

Alex

BTW: I might be totally wrong on some of the assumptions above. Anyway, 
I think that med-mesh is a *great* idea!
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