Objectives¶

Main characteristics¶

Suitable for rapid deployments as well as for stable community networks
Ability to scale to thousands of nodes connecting different network clouds
Complete auto-configuration, with the option for different levels of manual tunning #5
Roaming within network clouds
Automatic Internet access detection and sharing
Dual stack IPv6/IPv4
Dynamic global and local hostname resolution
Decentralized network mapping and monitoring #6
Based on OpenWRT
Free Software

Use Lua whenever possible instead of shell scripts
Guarantee a minimal mtu of 1350
Do not go over 0.64Mbit/s of routing overhead (we are estimating this should scale to 5k nodes with an average of 4 neighbors per node, considering an overhead of 4byte/s per node added to the net).
Roaming should maintain persistent connections where possible
The firmware should be structured as feed for OpenWRT

Auto-config scripts (base config, gateway mode, etc.)
Manual configuration web interface (LUCI-based)
Safe config testing with revert-on-failure capability
Shell tools for node management ("qmpcontrol")
Tools to measure and monitor the network (aggregated data (like byte count) push/pull, more something like netflow (push only) ?)
- Antenna alignment tools
- Bandwidth measurement tool (actual tools rely on userspace programs, it would be better to find an in kernel solution ( seems ubiquity have a proprietary in kernel solution already ) because of limited CPU on devices; investigate arbitrary routing loops for throughput testing)
- Wireless and network info (spectral analysis, signal, noise... both Push (with the agent) and Pull (via luci uhttpd) ?)
Splash screen/captive portal
Simple upgrade system
Regulatory domain unlocker
Versatile ping watchdog (watchping)
Internet sharing control and configuration (some openwisp components?)