OLSR mesh GUI $400 {awarded}

[pcatiprodotnet]

$300.00 {upgraded to $400!} bounty for an OLSR GUI Web Interface integrated into pfSense, easy enough for those relatively new to networking/wireless/mesh to set up a well functioning and generally well tuned olsr wireless network; also add great olsr extensions such as the "Link Quality Extensions", "Dynamic Internet gateway plugin", "Nameserver plugin", & "Secure OLSR plugin" to help secure and control the mesh.  The next two requests are optional niceties we would like if possible: "Dot topology information plugin", also a way to identify the MAC address of other PCs one communicates with over the mesh, and, as in aldo's "failover routing" bounty, it would be nice to use the olsr mesh to draw upon another internet connection automatically when ours goes down.
Potential Inspirations for GUI, Features & Implementation …
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/etel/2006/02/10/free-mesh-networking-with-metrix-pebble.html?page=2
http://www.meshnode.org/

We need to use pfSense Embedded version on PC Engine WRAP.2C 266MHz 128MB with one LAN port for power+local LAN and/or internet access, and one EMP-8602 400mw 802.11a/g/b wireless mini-pci card, routing in Ad-Hoc mode.  It appears that olsr is capable of handling backhaul & access point duties all on one wireless card.

Please let me know the procedure for bounty donation.  In addition, if this bounty turns out Very well (beyond expectations), and the pfSense project still needs, we will also donate one of the above mentioned WRAP systems (complete with power adapter, pigtails and antennas) to the pfSense team, plus upgrade one of the mini-pci wireless cards to an EMP-8602 400mw 802.11a/g/b.
Related discussions:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=676.msg4166#msg4166
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=657.0

Thank you,

• Internet Professionals, LLC
• Pete
• pc@ipro.net

[sullrich]

I am interested in this, but please clarify:

"and user-optional integration with VPN (for Bridging) over the mesh, all done by the pfSense units."

What exactly do you have in mind?

Also, here is a screen shot of the early version (there are a few duplicated texts, etc but I'll fix soon).

http://www.pfsense.com/~sullrich/pics/olsrd.PNG

[pcatiprodotnet]

please clarify:
"and user-optional integration with VPN (for Bridging) over the mesh, all done by the pfSense units."
What exactly do you have in mind?
Thank you for your interest sullrich.  Please disregard mention of "VPN", unless you end up finding it a useful tool for this and/or aldo's bounty.  One of our goals is to find way to identify not just the IP address but also the MAC address of PCs I'm communicating with across the olsr mesh.  If you know of a better way to accomplish this, or if this is impossible, no problem.
Thanks, -Pete

[jeroen234]

nebe the option to alow pfsense to add vpn conections that are made to the pfsense olsrd server to be add to the hna of olsr
so that when a user makes a conection to the pfsense server by vpn ipsec or ptpp can be reacht from  the whole olsrd mesh
option to add networks by hand  in the hna so that you can add networks that don't use olsrd but are conected to  the pfsense olsrd server
so that those can be reacht from any where on the olsrd mesh

hna before vpn conection:

local lan network

10.141.254.0 255.255.255.0

hna afther pe1roc logs in on ptpp and gets ipadress 10.141.250.226 and netmask 255.255.255.254

local lan network

10.141.254.0 255.255.255.0

vpn ptpp user pe1roc

10.141.250.226 255.255.255.254

[pcatiprodotnet]

I just noticed the latest Beta has an OLSR GUI.  Is the OLSR GUI ready for testing?  Does it also support OLSR "Link Quality Extensions"?  Usually olsr gui's have a check box for it.  If so, I'll make time over the next few weeks to test it, then award the bounty if all goes well.  (post/pm paypal addr).

[lsf]

Scott did a GUI for it, but it does not have all the parameters in it, but it should work. Anything you need you should tell scott, and possibly also explain what the config entries looks like and what the different settings are (if any).
I can also add stuff to it if scott is busy. I worked on olsr in the past, but never got around to implement a propper GUI for it.

[sullrich]

You can find our paypal address in the donations area.  This is still a work in progress so I hope to have feedback to improve.

[pcatiprodotnet]

I just tried to enable olsr and got this error page…

Warning: fopen(/usr/local/etc/olsrkey.txt): failed to open stream: Read-only file system in /usr/local/www/pkg_edit.php(172) : eval()'d code on line 1 Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /usr/local/www/pkg_edit.php(172) : eval()'d code on line 1 Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /usr/local/www/pkg_edit.php(172) : eval()'d code on line 1 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/local/www/pkg_edit.php(172) :
eval()'d code:1) in /usr/local/www/pkg_edit.php on line 186

Will try again next beta snapshot release. Thanks,-Pete

[sullrich]

This is already fixed in CVS.

[pcatiprodotnet]

explain what the config entries looks like

I haven't attempted to set OLSR up without a gui yet.
The OLSR windows version has an easy installer and a decent gui to study.
Perhaps it also writes config files that are compatible with other platforms?

[pcatiprodotnet]

Issues I've noticed so far that are needed to finish up this bounty …

1. Need a Check box for "Link Quality Extensions".
x2. Tabs/Check-boxes for capability to enable OLSR on multiple Network Interfaces. {done: use Ctrl key to multi-select}
3. I tried to enable and view the olsr web stats but it was just an empty page; am I using this correctly?
4. When olsr is checked enabled, alter the DHCP server/forwarding GUI so that DHCP may be enabled on wan/all interfaces.
5. For HNA (Dynamic Internet gateway) to function, I read on the olsr-users mailing list that the Wan Gateway should
    be unset, which is currently not possible in the gui.  Is this correct?  Perhaps there is more to making this work.

Thanks,
-Pete

[sullrich]

@pcatiprodotnet:

2. Tabs/Check-boxes for capability to enable OLSR on multiple Network Interfaces.

Uhh that works now.  Hold down the CTRL key and select the interfaces you want.  I'll look into the others.

[pcatiprodotnet]

Good grief, I'm sorry I had no idea the Ctrl key could be used like that. Thanks, -Pete

[sullrich]

Sounds like we need to add a blurb under the interface control describing this behavior.

[sullrich]

@pcatiprodotnet:

Issues I've noticed so far that are needed to finish up this bounty …

1. Need a Check box for "Link Quality Extensions".
x. Tabs/Check-boxes for capability to enable OLSR on multiple Network Interfaces. {done: use Ctrl key to multi-select}
3. I tried to enable and view the olsr web stats but it was just an empty page; am I using this correctly?
4. When olsr is checked enabled, alter the DHCP server/forwarding GUI so that DHCP may be enabled on wan/all interfaces.
5. For HNA (Dynamic Internet gateway) to function, I read on the olsr-users mailing list that the Wan Gateway should
    be unset, which is currently not possible in the gui.  Is this correct?  Perhaps there is more to making this work.

Thanks,
-Pete

All of these with exception of #3 should be resolved.

Please do a cvs_sync.sh RELENG_1 and test.

Thanks!

[pcatiprodotnet]

Thanks Scott!  We plan to run a small test tomorrow at work with 3 pfSense ad-hoc olsr nodes
(placing node#1 & node#3 out of range of each other) and several non-olsr wi-fi & lan clients.

Here are a couple replies I received from the olsr-users mailing list so far regarding olsr configuration…

Quote: " On OLSR nodes, you'd leave gateway unset, as the HNA announcement
of 0.0.0.0 sets the default gateway on all nodes that hear it. For DNS, I
have it manually set, though there's a plugin for this apparently in OLSR. "
--Me: Is he referring to the "Nameservice" plugin?  Automatically setting DNS to the HNA would be great.

--Me: I want our olsr nodes to also serve Non-olsr client PCs.
--Should the node's DHCP server serve the node's own IP address as
--the Gateway & DNS to the Non-olsr client PCs?
Quote: " Yes, at least that's how I've setup our network. "

Quote: " If nodes dont see each other (dont show up in the list), then
there is propably something wrong with their broadcast addresses. "

Thank you, -Pete

[pcatiprodotnet]

I tried that upgrade command but it gave the following errors:
(I am running beta3 embedded)

cvs_sync.sh RELENG_1

Setting CVS_IP to cvs.pfsense.com
Cannot find cvsup, pkg_add in progress
/usr/local/sbin/cvs_sync.sh: /usr/sbin/pkg_add: not found
Cannot find cvs, fetching static cvs…
fetch: http://www.pfsense.com/~sullrich/extra/cvs: Temporary Redirect
chmod: /usr/bin/cvs: No such file or directory
Syncing with pfSense.com
Checking out RELENG_1
mkdir: /root/pfSense: Read-only file system
cd: can't cd to /root/pfSense//..
mkdir: /root/pfSenseCO: Read-only file system
cd: can't cd to /root/pfSenseCO/
cd: can't cd to /root/pfSenseCO//
cd: can't cd to /root/pfSenseCO//
Installing new files...cd: can't cd to /root/pfSenseCO//pfSense
x .
x .cshrc: Can't open '.cshrc': File exists
x .login: Can't open '.login': Read-only file system
x .profile: Can't open '.profile': File exists
x .shrc: Can't open '.shrc': Read-only file system
x .tcshrc: Can't open '.tcshrc': Read-only file system
x .hushlogin: Can't open '.hushlogin': Read-only file system
CVS Sync Complete

Restarting webConfigurator... done.

[sullrich]

You cannot cvs_sync.sh on embedded.  Wait for the next snapshot or beta4.

[pcatiprodotnet]

No problem.  I think we can go ahead with tests today; it seems functional.
I did get the olsr stats (issue#3) to function; I far as I can recall I don't think I did anything different.
A couple more issues…
6. I have noticed that sometimes when I click [Save] on the OLSR configuration page it fails to start OLSR.
    I would check the logs and there would be No listing for "olsrd[4494]: olsr.org - 0.4.10 successfully started".
7. It also seems OLSR won't start on boot so far; I must open the olsr config page and [Save] to get it running.
Thanks,-Pete

[sullrich]

Alright, I've made some monitor adjustments to the start code.  Let's see what happens on next testing image.