Bridge on mesh gateway

Bridge on mesh gateway

[Francesco Zanella]

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Hi all,

I'm trying to set up a mesh network with 2 gateways where i make a 
bridge between the mesh interface (wlan0) and eth0.
I would like to make the PCs out of the mesh attached to eth0 of the 
GWs, comunicate like they would be on the same LAN. A sort of lvl 2 
tunnel through the mesh.

For test, I set up a mesh with 2 nodes GW where I attached 2 PCs on 
their respective eth0.

PC3::eth0 <-------> eth0::MESH3::wlan0 <-------> wlan0::MESH5::eth0 
<-------> eth0::PC5
                                   |____ br0 
_____|                         |_____ br0 ____|

(Sorry for the numbers but is for reflect the captures)

I'm using ath9k, compat-drivers-3.8.3-2-snpu.

First I set up the mesh on nodes MESH3 and MESH5:
iw wlan0 set type mesh
iw wlan0 set freq 5220 HT40+
ifconfig wlan0 up
iw wlan0 mesh join DL_8_M
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.3.3

They can ping each other.

Then I make the bridge on MESH3 and MESH5 and I assign the previous IP 
to interface br0:
brctl addbr br0
brctl stp br0 off
brctl addif br0 eth0
brctl addif br0 wlan0
ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig wlan0 0.0.0.0 up
ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 up
ifconfig br0 192.168.3.3

I join the mesh and turn on root mode and gate announcements:

iw wlan0 mesh join DL_8_M
iw wlan0 set mesh_param mesh_hwmp_rootmode=4
iw wlan0 set mesh_param mesh_gate_announcements=1

I set IP and default gw on PC3 and PC5:
iwconfig eth0 192.168.20.1 up
route add default gw 192.168.20.2

BUT PCs  DON'T PING EACH OTHER...
What am I doing wrong?

I took capture on all 4 machines and I noticed that ARP request sent in 
broadcast by PC5 reach all machines, also PC3 that reply in unicast to 
PC5's MAC, but I can't see this ARP reply neither on MESH3...
I think the cause is that external PCs MAC address is not known in the 
mesh so MESH3 nodes don't know where send the pkt. But gate 
announcements should solve this problem! And I enabled it... but in 
Action pkts sent every 5 sec by GWs I can see the tag "Root 
Announcement" and never the tag "Gate Announcements" where they should 
send the list of MAC addresses of their external connected machines...

I know that 802.11s standard introduced 6 addresses frame for this 
purpose, is it implemented in ath9k?
I can see in the ARP request the MAC of PC5 in "Mesh Control Field"... 
why is it not registered by MESH 3?
Is there a user space command or a proc file that shows the external MAC 
table?

I read about option 4addr and mode wds, can they help me? (4addr seems 
to be not supported in mesh mode...)

Is there another/better way to do what I'm trying to do? (I was thinking 
about a VPN between the 2 mesh GW, and a bridge between eth0 and tun0...).

In attach the 4 capture files (the ping test is near the end, sorry for 
the mess of other devices beacons...) , and here all MAC addresses and 
IPs involved:
PC3:
    eth0:
       MAC: 08:9e:01:f6:8e:00
       IP: 192.168.20.2

PC5:
    eth0:
       MAC: 00:24:be:c2:40:96
       IP: 192.168.20.1

MESH3:
    eth0:
       MAC: 00:C0:08:88:F3:36
    wlan0:
       MAC: 04:F0:21:10:10:8C
    br0:
       MAC: 00:C0:08:88:F3:36 (same as eth0... I try to make it same as 
wlan0 but nothing changes)
       IP: 192.168.3.3

MESH5:
    eth0:
       MAC: 00:C0:08:88:F3:34
    wlan0:
       MAC: 04:F0:21:17:FF:F6
    br0:
       MAC: 00:C0:08:88:F3:34
       IP: 192.168.3.5

I tried also assigning to external PCs an IP address in the same net as 
the mesh (192.168.3.0/24), but nothing changes...


Thanks a lot in advance,

Francesco

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