PROJECT INTERIM REPORT EEL 5718 – COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS

Implementation of Wireless Mesh Network using

Alpine Linux
Neeraj Poddar, Komal Kasat
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville

Abstract - A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a II. PROTOCOLS STUDIED

communications network made up of radio nodes
organized in a mesh topology. Mesh topology is a type of There are a large number of protocols that can be
networking wherein each node in the network may act as implemented in mesh networking depending on the goals
an independent router, regardless of whether it is and design criteria. The most common protocols, standards
connected to another network or not. It allows for and systems in the field of wireless mesh networks are
continuous connections and reconfiguration around briefly described below:
broken or blocked paths by “hopping” from node to node
until the destination is reached. In this project we intend to AODV - Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector:
implement a wireless mesh network by configuring Alpine
Linux on a laptop as a mesh node for wireless clients. This It is routing protocol designed for ad hoc mobile networks.
will enable the users in vicinity to connect to the network It builds routes between nodes only as desired by source
wirelessly and gain access to internet. nodes and hence it’s an on demand algorithm. It maintains
these routes as long as they are needed by the sources.

AODV builds routes using a route request / route reply

query cycle. When a source node desires a route to a
I. INTRODUCTION
destination for which it does not already have a route, it
broadcasts a route request (RREQ) packet across the
In a wireless mesh network, the network network. Nodes receiving this packet update their
connection is spread out among dozens or even hundreds of information for the source node and set up backwards
wireless mesh nodes that "talk" to each other to share the pointers to the source node in the route tables. In addition to
network connection across a large area. Mesh nodes are the source node's IP address, current sequence number, and
small radio transmitters that function in the same way as a broadcast ID, the RREQ also contains the most recent
wireless router. Nodes use the common WiFi standards sequence number for the destination of which the source
known as 802.11a, b and g to communicate wirelessly with node is aware. A node receiving the RREQ may send a route
users, and, more importantly, with each other. Each node reply (RREP) if it is either the destination or if it has a route
operates not only as a host but also as a router, forwarding to the destination with corresponding sequence number
packets on behalf of other nodes that may not be within greater than or equal to that contained in the RREQ. If this is
direct wireless transmission of their destination. The biggest the case, it unicasts a RREP back to the source. Otherwise, it
advantage of wireless mesh networks as opposed to wired or rebroadcasts the RREQ. Nodes keep track of the RREQ's
fixed wireless networks is that they are truly wireless. Most source IP address and broadcast ID. If they receive a RREQ
traditional wireless access points still need to be wired to the which they have already processed, they discard the RREQ
Internet to broadcast their signal. In a wireless mesh and do not forward it.
network, only one node needs to be physically wired to a
network connection. That one wired node then shares its As the RREP propagates back to the source, nodes set up
Internet connection wirelessly with all other nodes in its forward pointers to the destination. Once the source node
vicinity and hence the network grows. receives the RREP, it may begin to forward data packets to
the destination. If the source later receives a RREP
containing a greater sequence number or contains the same
sequence number with a smaller hopcount, it may update its
routing information for that destination and begin using the
better route.

As long as the route remains active, it will continue to be

maintained. A route is considered active as long as there are
data packets periodically travelling from the source to the
destination along that path. Once the source stops sending
data packets, the links will time out and eventually be
deleted from the intermediate node routing tables. If a link
break occurs while the route is active, the node upstream of
the break propagates a route error (RERR) message to the
Fig.1 Wireless Mesh Network
source node to inform it of the now unreachable
destination(s). After receiving the RERR, if the source node MMRP Mobile Mesh Routing Protocol:
still desires the route, it can reinitiate route discovery.
Mobile Mesh protocol contains three separate protocols,
OLSR Protocol: each addressing a specific function:

The OLSR Optimized Link State Routing Protocol is a 1. Link Discovery

proactive link state protocol. Being a proactive protocol It is based on the “hello” protocol. Each interface
implies periodically sending packets to maintain information running the protocol periodically broadcasts a Hello
about the network topology. Also, link state implies that it message containing its interface address and the addresses of
broadcasts the list of the neighbors over the network. So the interfaces that it has heard Hello messages from in the
basically all nodes are aware of the neighbors of all the previous period. This is sufficient for a node's interface to
nodes and hence the entire topology is known. All the routes discover all links incident to it as well as bidirectional links.
being known the shortest path to the destination can be
determined. 2. Routing
MMRP is based upon the link state approach and
OLSR Protocol uses two packets: “hello” packets and “TC” allows us to build least cost paths between any source and
packets. “Hello” packets are used to build the neighborhood destination. Each "Link State Packet" (LSP) contains
of a node and at the same time “hello” packets are used to various information including a unique router id and a list of
compute the “multipoint” relays of a node. Multipoint relay lists that contains each local interface address and a list of
will permit the broadcast. In this figure, we have shown a the neighbor interface addresses which have links to it and
node with its neighbors and its two hop neighbors. A two their corresponding costs. Also in the LSP are a list of
hop neighbors of a node is a neighbor of its neighbors. This "External Route Advertisements" which enable the node to
is not an existing neighbor. To obtain a complete broadcast, advertise routes into the mobile cloud. One use of this is to
it is sufficient that the packet be repeated by a convenient allow routers that have a wired connection to a fixed
subset of its neighbor. This subset must be computed in such network to advertise a default route for the mobile nodes.
a way that all the two hop neighbor receive the packet. If Thus, we provide a mechanism for allowing mobile nodes to
this requirement is achieved, it can be shown by induction gain external connectivity. Also, this mechanism can be
that a complete broadcast is obtained. Actually, this used by a wireless router to advertise a route for a collection
technique provides a way to locally compute a spanning of hosts which are directly connected to it.
tree.
3. Border Discovery
The “TC” packets are sent periodically by a node. This Mobile Mesh Border Discovery Protocol
packet contains the list of its multipoint relay i.e. the subset (MMBDP) is a novel mechanism that enables flow existing
of nodes which make it possible to cover all its two hop outside the mobile cloud to be utilized. Other approaches to
nodes. The “TC” packets are sent in broadcast and with the mobile ad hoc networking ignore this possibility. If two or
multipoint relay rule only the multipoint relay nodes will more nodes in the mobile cloud each have a connection into
retransmit the packet. A sequence number is used to avoid a fixed network (let's call these nodes "border" routers), then
loops due to infinite retransmission of the packet. Another the opportunity exists for mobile nodes to communicate with
field is used to allow knowing which of two “TC” packets is other mobile nodes across the fixed network. This is
the more up-to-date. Although a node does not send its accomplished by setting up tunnels between the border
entire neighborhood in the “TC” packet, it can be shown that routers across the fixed network. The border discovery
this information is sufficient to build a topology of the net. protocol enables a border router to discover other border
routers and then set up tunnels with them.

III. CURRENT & FUTURE IMPLEMENTATIONS

We have been able to configure wireless on alpine

to connect to available networks via network authentication
and WPA encryption.

The steps involved are getting wlan0 interface up and

running. For this first the drivers of the wireless NIC should
be installed and the kernel should be able to identify it. If it
is not able to identify wlan0 then the driver needs to be
installed separately. Once wlan0 is up, by setting up the
network interfaces, then the wireless tools and wireless
supplicant packages are installed.

Then connect to the preferred network ESSID by searching

for available networks. If the network is encrypted then
WPA supplicant or WEP is used depending on network’s
Fig.2 OLSR Protocol encryption type.
Then restart the network and you can obtain two IP address IV. REFERENCES
for each interface of eth0 and wlan0.
[1] Simulation Results of the OLSR Routing Protocol for
Next part involves creating an adhoc connection between Wireless Network - Anis Laouti, Paul Muhlethaler,
two laptops wirelessly and test if they are able to ping each Abdellah Najid, Epiphane Plakoo
other. We tested two laptops by assigning them two static IP [2] Ian F. Akyildiz, Xudong Wang, Weilin Wang - Wireless
addresses and ping each other using adhoc connection. mesh networks: a survey
[3] Jangeun Jun and Mihail L. Sichitiu - The Nominal
The next step is to set up bridge network between Ethernet Capacity of Wireless Mesh Networks
card and wireless card. We have been trying a few things but [4] S.M. Chen, P, Lin, D-W Huang, S-R Yang - A study on
presently have not been able to bridge the wired lan distributed/centralized scheduling for wireless mesh network
connection and the wireless connection. Once the bridge is [5] http://www.wikipedia.org
established then we can have the adhoc connected laptop to [6]http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2004/01/22/
have internet access. wirelessmesh.html
[7] http://wiki.alpinelinux.org
The final step is setting up mesh network by implementing [8] http://hipercom.inria.fr/olsr/#intro
one of the protocols described above. This would enable the
third laptop which is connected in adhoc fashion to the
intermediate laptop to gain internet access. It would gain this
access via the laptop which is wired and has bridged
connection with wireless.

This mesh network topology can be achieved by making the

laptop with bridged connection have a master mode wireless
connection which enables it to act as an access point and
other laptops can connect to it. But presently we are trying
to establish the connection via adhoc mode.

We have been successful in connecting alpine to wireless

networks and make it work in adhoc mode. The bridging is
not yet working properly so after implementing the bridging
the mesh protocol has to be implemented and the setup has
to be verified.