Diff: FirmwareBuilder

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+This page exists to maintain a registry of information about the (http://www.melbournewireless.org.au/mwfirmware/firmware.php Melbourne Wireless Automagic Firmware Builder) 

+ 

+The Firmware Builder allows node-owners to easily create a preconfigured firmware for a wireless router.  Currently, only Broadcom-based wireless routers are supported, such as the early Linksys WRT54G versions, the Asus WL-HDD, WL-500G and WL-500G Premium. 

+ 

+The idea behind the Firmware Builder is to reduce the time it takes to configure and build the operating system for a public wireless node.  Currently, the firmware is based on the Berlin-based (http://freifunk.net/wiki/FreifunkFirmwareEnglish Freifunk Firmware).  We hope to add more packages so as to localise the firmware for Melbourne Wireless. 

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+This page will deal only with the builder itself.  The Melbourne Wireless Firmware that is created by the firmware will be discussed on (http://melbournewireless.org.au/wiki/index.php?MelbourneWirelessFirmware this page) 

+ 

+Important points to note about the Builder: 

+* You can only build firmwares for nodes that you own 

+* You need to be logged into the website to use the firmware builder 

+* Your node needs to have at least one IP block allocated 

+* To request an IP allocation, your node needs to have a status of "testing" or "operational" 

+ 

+Some things to note about the resulting firmware: 

+ 

+* The usual network bridge between the LAN ports and the WiFi interface is removed in the Freifunk Firmware.  The LAN and Wifi interfaces are separate. 

+ 

+* The WiFi interface will have an IP address equal to the IP Block network address + 1 

+ 

+* The firmware uses the OLSR routing protocol 

+ 

+* The WiFi interface is considered to be publicly accessable and is firewalled from the private LAN interface 

+ 

+* The Wifi Interface has a DHCP server active.  It is configured to hand out 5 addresses in the upper half of the /28 allocation. 

+ 

+* DHCP clients on the Wifi interface access the rest of the OLSR network via NAT running on the router.  This means that the DHCP clients don't need to run the OLSR daemon to access the network.  NAT also offers a level of security to the DHCP clients from the rest of the network. 

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+* The Wifi radio is configured to run in adhoc mode, on Channel 10.  Adhoc mode allows the node to act as a relay for other OLSR nodes without necessarily needing to plan links, and allows the network to be self-healing. 

+ 

+* The Wifi interface has a netmask of 255.255.0.0.  This is the netmask for the whole Melbourne Wireless network.  This allows any node to connect to any other node without needing to pre-plan IP address ranges.  Because the nodes use adhoc mode, Ethernet broadcasts are limited to the range of the node's own radio - OLSR does not repeat broadcast traffic across the network.  OLSR also only propogates each routers own host route (/32) by default. 

+ 

+* The OLSR nameservice plugin is active by default.  This will mean that the hostname-ip address lookup tables for all OLSR nodes will be propogated across the network and will be available via the routers DNS servers.