Short version:
If we make a mesh with 5 routers running LibreMesh, and each router has
an internet connection, and a crowd of people gather at one node and all
use the WiFi simultaneously for internet communication, will LibreMesh
effectively load balance, thus making full use of all 5 internet
connections?
Long version:
During the celebration of Inti Raymi in the sierra, about 5000 people
come to visit a town that has a population of about 800 during the rest
of the year. That community is in a parroquia that includes 6
communities in total. This year, in the town that hosts the Inti Raymi
celebration, they want to offer internet via WiFi to the visitors (30
minutes free, then pay if they want more). So, instead of signing a
3-year contract for a fiber optic connection (when we only want 2 weeks
of higher-capacity connectivity), or contracting a DSL line with no
contract but slower speeds, it occurred to me to bring all the
connections in the parroquia to the Inti Raymi celebration, and let load
balancing do its magic.
Question: How can LibreMesh make this work?
Proposal:
At each internet connection, place a LIbreMesh router, connect that to
an antenna/radio that links to the celebration center. At the
celebration center, bring all those connections to another router with
LibreMesh. In other words (LM = LibreMesh router:
internet A -- LM --link via LHG5--\
internet B -- LM --link via LHG5---\___omnidirectional antenna/radio
internet C -- LM --link via LHG5---/ or multiple LHG5
internet D -- LM --link via LHG5--/ |
... |
... LibreMesh router at celebration site
Then from that LibreMesh router at the celebration site, we would build
out the celebration network of WiFi for 5000 people. Maybe with
LibreMesh-ed WiTek R1 routers, maybe Unifi, maybe wAP. The advantage of
the Unifi or wAP is that each router can handle more clients than a
WiTek R1, and there are stable captive portal and ticket softwares for
those systems, and Pirania isn't yet ready to do this in LibreMesh.
I recently heard a comment something like "LibreMesh is designed for
wireless mesh networks." But the longest-running community network in
Ecuador using LibreMesh has exactly zero inter-node links via LibreMesh
WiFi. Our network looks like this:
WDR3500 running LibreMesh 17.06 in house A
/\
| UTP/ethernet cable
\/
WDR3500 running LibreMesh 17.06 in house B
/\
| UTP/ethernet cable
\/
5-port switch
/\
| UTP/ethernet cable
\/
WDR3500 running LibreMesh 17.06 in house C
/\
| link between two Ubiquiti LiteBeam M5 running stock firmware
\/
WDR3500 running LibreMesh 17.06 in house D
So... what's going on? Is LibreMesh not tested for wired inter-node
connections? Are hybrid networks that include both wired and wireless
connections not part of the picture? If this is true, then what's the
path from here to the day when we say "LibreMesh is designed for
community mesh networks" regardless of their use of UTP, WiFi, fiber
optic, proprietary WiFi links, or whatever else?
cheers,
~ Patrick
I understand that MikroTik allows apps to run on their devices. I wonder
if writing a LibreMesh app to run on MikroTik would be easier and more
effective than flashing MikroTik devices with LibreMesh firmware.
What sort of effort would this require?
Are there any other manufacturers that allow this? Seems that Ubiquiti
doesn't.
This seems interesting to me for a variety of reasons:
- re-use existing network hardware
- MikroTik has a wider variety of devices than LibreRouter at the moment
- MikroTik devices are more easily available than LibreRouter at the moment
- as the LibreRouter becomes more available and with more diversity of
models, people will already be used to LibreMesh since they used it
already on MikroTik devices.
So we could install a network today with MikroTik, and then seamlessly
integrate LibreRouters when they're available.
