Re: [B.A.T.M.A.N.] Is BATMAN alone enough to create wireless mesh networks?

[Antonio Quartulli <antonio@meshcoding.com>]

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On 25/01/14 01:29, crocket wrote:
> So is BATMAN a full-fledged alternative to 802.11s?

No.

802.11s is implemented at the datalink layer (actually inside the
mac80211 kernel module) and provides you a way to establish a connection
with other peers.

With batman-adv you first need to establish the connection with the
other nodes by means of adhoc or infrastructure mode (or any other kind
of connection that creates a virtual Ethernet interface).

Therefore when using batman-adv (or batmand or bmx6) you first need to
establish a datalink layer connection and then you can use the protocol
on top of it.

In the case of 802.11s the datalink connection is handled by itself
directly.

I would say that it is a small difference, but then the sentence would be:

"{batman-adv + adhoc mode} is an alternative to 802.11s"

batman-adv took this approach because we believe that there is no need
to re-implement something that we already have (e.g. adhoc mode) and at
the same time this gives batman-adv more flexibility (it can be used
also on top of wired Ethernet interfaces).


Cheers,

> 
> On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 12:47 AM, Elektra <onelektra@gmx.net> wrote:
>> Hi  –
>>
>> B.A.T.M.A.N. refers to a routing algorithm.
>>
>> There are implementations of the routing algorithom at OSI layer 2 (batman-advanced) and layer 3 (batmand, bmx6)
>>
>> You can use all 3 variants for Android to build wireless mesh networks and people are actually doing so (Serval)
>>
>> Integrating batman-advanced into Android requires you to not only have root, but also provide a batman-adv kernel module that fits the kernel of the device. This is fine, if someone like Google or Cyanogenmod would enclude batman-adv in their Android builds, which would merely require to enable building the module in the kernel build process, as it is shipped with the vanilla kernel sources.
>>
>> batmand and bmx6 are user space programs that merely alter the routing table. Integrating these is easier, since you merely require root permissions to run them.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Elektra
>>
>>
>>> I've been searching for wireless mesh network solutions.
>>> BATMAN showed up in google search results.
>>>
>>> I just wonder its role and the future of it, and I want to know if it
>>> can power wireless mesh networks in android phones.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Elektra <onelektra@gmx.net>
> 


-- 
Antonio Quartulli


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