DD-WRT Setup v1

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  • Mesh Network Configuration v1::DD-WRT | 1

    Mesh Network

    Configuration for

    DD-WRT V1

    June 2012

  • Mesh Network Configuration v1::DD-WRT | 2

    Dear Reader,

    At the time of writing there is no conspicuous guide that makes the setting up of a

    mesh network available to those without specialized networking knowledge. The success of

    any technology is measured only by the ability to be widely adopted. There seems to be disin-

    terest on the part of the technically literate when it comes to disseminating their little tech-

    nological treasures. It seems particularly ironic to the author in this case because mesh net-

    work technology has been built to allow for the spreading of information easily and without

    the need of a super entity, like an ISP, to disperse it

    This guide serves as a clear path to setting up a mesh network with DD-WRT firmware.

    It is outside of the scope of this document to instruct readers on the installation of the firm-

    ware. Please refer to the DD-WRT website for further instructions.

    This guide assumes that DD-WRT with OLSR has been installed on your router and that

    it has been reset to default settings. When two or more routers are set up as instructed from

    this guide they will automatically form a mesh network and begin to move traffic between cli-

    ents. You can test this by using Wireshark. This testing is also outside the scope of this guide.

    Further revisions are expected later in 2012 as recommendations, clarifications, en-

    hancements, and corrections are made known to the PittMesh organization.

    Any questions, comments, concerns, or criticisms can be sent to [email protected].

    Special thanks to ECE@UPRM for writing the only guide in over a year of research that made

    sense enough to get a mesh network up and running. Please visit their site:

    https://sites.google.com/a/uprm.edu/ccli/Home/testbeds-1/wireless-mesh-network-testbed-using-wrt54gl-dd-wrt-and-olsr

    Sincerely,

    Adam Longwill

    PittMesh

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    Name your router with a unique name

    that will allow you to keep track of it in a

    large mesh of other routers. This is the

    third router of mine in a string and it

    uses the OLSR protocol, so I named it

    OLSR3. You can name yours Bob if you

    like.

    I like to change the maximum amount of

    users to 99 from the default of 50 be-

    cause I like to envision a world where

    my dinky little router would have that

    many simultaneous users. I dont like to

    envision the lag that would cause,

    though.

    You can turn off the time-keeping client.

    I dont know if it matters, but other

    guides recommend turning it off and

    who am I to thumb my nose at my pre-

    decessors?

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    Change the Operating Mode to OLSR. If

    you dont have this option you cant

    mesh. You probably installed the wrong

    version of DD-WRT. This is Mandatory.

    Change the New Interface to eth1 and

    click Add. A new set of settings will

    appear. Dont Change them. Click Apply

    Settings after the new settings appear.

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    Change Wireless Mode to Adhoc. Man-

    datory.

    Change your Wireless Network Name to

    the EXACT spelling of the mesh network

    you are trying to join. CASE SENSITIVE!

    Mandatory.

    Set Wireless Channel to the same chan-

    nel as the rest of the network. Manda-

    tory.

    Change the Network Configuration

    to Unbridged then set a UNIQUE

    IP address on the same subnet. If

    you dont know what that means,

    get in touch with your mesh net-

    work admins who will give you an

    unused IP address. Mandatory.

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    Crank this baby up to 11! Turn up the

    transmission power (TX Power) up to a

    maximum of 251 milliwatts. The legal

    limit is 1,000 milliwatts so dont worry

    about being too loud. Be aware, any

    change in electricity usage increases the

    chance of frying your baby. Just sayin.

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    Turn off the SPI Firewall. This will allow

    any and all traffic through the router.

    Mandatory.

    Uncheck Block Anonymous WAN Re-

    quests. We definitely want to be able to

    ping this router when its 50 feet in the

    air on some tree and we want to know

    if its reachable via wifi.

    Uncheck Filter IDENT, too.

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    Enable Enable Info Site but make sure

    its password protected. This will let you

    get info about the router in the wild.

    Enable Web GUI Management as well as

    Telnet Management. This will allow you

    to put the your routers address in a

    browser anywhere on the network.

    Keep the ports at their defaults.

    Change the number of ports to 4096.

    Ports are good. Fire is bad. Various pro-

    grams only talk on certain ports. Doesnt

    do harm to openm up.

    OVERCLOCK THIS BABY! High traffic de-

    mands higher clock speeds. Be warned,

    your router may become unresponsive

    and you will need to reset it and restart

    the configuration procedure.