Building A Wireless Mesh Network

Building a Wireless Mesh Network
I. INSTALL DD-WRT FIRMWARE INTO THE LINKSYS WRT54GL ROUTER

The DD-WRT firmware provide us a lot more features than the original Linksys WRT54GL router firmware. To install DD-WRT firmware, we will need to download two firmware versions: mini and standard. The mini version is due to some limitations imposed by the Linksys firmware where you can only upload the firmware with a certain maximum size. This mini version doesn't have OLSR, after flashing it to mini version we will need to flash it again with the standard version. We will use v24-sp1 version.
IMPORTANT: Flashing the
Linksys WRT54GL Router with DD-WRT will void the warranty. Making a mistake flashing the device can render it unusable. We will use the following hardware and software. HARDWARE: 1. 02x Linksys WRT54GL wireless router 2. 02x Laptop 3. 02x Ethernet Cable SOFTWARE: 1. Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox 2. dd-wrt.v24_mini_generic.bin 3. dd-wrt.v24_std_generic.bin In addition, we will have to take the following precautions before install DD-RWT: Disable all firewalls, anti-virus software, and wireless connections on the PC. Do NOT use a wireless connection to upload firmware instead of it use a wired connection. Do NOT flash/backup your firmware over an https connection, use http. Plug the blue Ethernet (Cat5/RJ45) cable that came with your router into the Network Interface Card (NIC) on the back of your computer and into one of the ports labeled 1, 2, 3, or 4. The Internet port on your router should be connected to your broadband source i.e. cable or DSL modem.
Modify By: Abner Ayala Acevedo and Luis eco Original Author: Julio Castillo
1.
Download the firmware images.
In order to upgrade the Linksys firmware, we have to go the next web site: http://www.ddwrt.com/site/support/router-database and download the two image files (Fig. 2).
Fig. 1: Linksys Router Model
Fig. 2: Image files to download 2. Restore to the Factory Defaults the router WRT54GL.
First, connect the PC to the WRT54GL via Ethernet cable (ports labeled 1-4, not the WAN or Internet port). Then, open Internet Explorer and navigate to 192.168.1.1. This will open the Linksys web interface and ask you for a user and a password. If you cannot remember them, press the Reset button for 30 seconds, with this action the username and the password will be reset to its original (username: admin & password: admin).
At the beginning we have the WRT54GL router with its original Linksys firmware (See Fig. 3).
Fig. 3: Original Linksys Firmware. It is recommendable to restore the router to Factory Defaults, before flashing with another firmware. (Fig. 4)

Go to Administration tab Factory Defaults tab Select "Yes". Click the Save Settings button, and then OK.
Fig. 4: Restore to the Factory Defaults. 3. Upgrade the Linksys firmware to DD-WRT mini (File: dd-wrt.v24_mini_generic.bin)
Go to Administration Tab Firmware Upgrade tab. Browse to the file ddwrt.v24_mini_generic.bin, and press the button Upgrade (Fig. 5). We will have installed DDWRT firmware mini edition.
Fig. 5: Upgrading to DD-WRT mini version. 4. Upgrade the Linksys firmware to DD-WRT Standard (File: dd-
wrt.v24_std_generic.bin)
Then, we have to do the same procedure as step 2 and 3, but in this opportunity we will
browse to the file dd-wrt.v24_std_generic.bin, and press the button Upgrade (Fig. 6). We will have DD-WRT firmware Standard edition.
Fig. 6: Upgrading to DD-WRT Standard version.
II. SET UP A WIRELESS MESH NETWORK WITH OLSR

The Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR) is the most representative and popular proactive routing protocol for Wireless Ad-Hoc networks. It has been developed at INRIA and has been standardized at IETF as experimental RFC 3626 [2]. It uses Hello and Topology Control (TC) messages to discover and then disseminate link state information throughout the mobile ad-hoc network. Individual nodes use this topology information to compute next hop destinations for all nodes in the network using shortest hop forwarding paths. Each router keeps the topology information of the entire network, and where the routes to all other nodes are always available, no matter whether there is any ongoing traffic or not. We will use OLSR to set up a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN). We will need the following requirements:
HARDWARE 1. Laptops (2) 2. Linksys WRT54GL Routers (2) SOFTWARE 1. 2. 3. 4. Windows DD-WRT v24-sp1 Olsrd-0.5.6 ( http://olsr.org/releases/0.5/olsrd-0.5.6-r3-pre-cac1df64dcd5-setup.exe ) Wireshark-win32-1.2 (http://media-2.cacetech.com/wireshark/win32/wireshark-win321.2.13.exe )
NETWORK TOPOLOGY Fig. 7 depicts the configuration of the WMN with OLSR routing protocol.
Fig. 7: Wireless Mesh Network Topology. 2.1 ROUTERS CONFIGURATION First, It is necessary to have installed DD-WRT v24-sp1firmware into the WRT54GL routers. If it is not installed, go to Appendix A. To enter to the routers's configuration. First, you have to use the Ethernet cable. Then, open a browser and insert in it the IP Address of the router. By default it is 192.168.1.1 and the username and the password are root and admin respectively. Then do the following actions to set it up. Go to Wireless tab Basic Settings tab. Set the following parameters (Fig. 8). Note: The IP Address field change depending of the number of router.
Fig. 8: Set up the wireless interface. The next time you enter to the router you can do it by 2 forms: With Ethernet cable or wirelessly. If you choose the first one the IP of the router will be 192.168.1.1, but if you choose the second one the IP of the router will be the new one you put in Fig. 7 that means 10.1.1.x. For the second router you can chose 10.1.1.X where X can take values from 2 to 24 For your demo you could use: Router 1: 10.1.1.1 Router 2: 10.1.1.3 Note: The SSID is the name of the network (like RUMNET), you can choose a unique SSID but BOTH routers should have the same SSID. Then, Go to Wireless tab Wireless Security tab. Disable Security mode. This is done to make this setup easier for troubleshooting (Fig. 9)
Fig. 9: Set the security mode disabled.
Go to Security tab Firewall Tab. Disable SPI Firewall option. This is done to make this setup easier for troubleshooting (Fig. 10) Note: OLSR needs certain ports open to work and to simplify things we just disabled the firewall instead. Later on if you want more security you can enable it and configure the iptables in the router to let the needed ports open (OLSR uses port 698 UDP)
Fig. 10: Disable SPI Firewall for easiest setup for OLSR. Finally, enable OLSR. Go to Setup tab Advanced Routing tab. Choose OLSR Router in the Operating Mode (Fig. 11).
Fig.11: Choosing OLS Router operating mode. Then, at the same window. Go to OLSR Routing (Optimized Link State Routing) section New Interface option. Select eth1 in the drop down list and click on Add button. Interface eth1 will be added. It corresponds to the wireless interface in the Linksys WRT54GL router (Fig. 12). After that, just click save and then Apply Settings button at the end of the page.
Fig. 12: Adding the eth1 interface to the OLSR configuration. 2.2 CLIENT COMPUTERS CONFIGURATION Now, setup the computers in order so they can successfully connect and communicate with the routers. First, we need to set a static IP on the same subnet as the routers. Go to wireless interface Properties (Figs. 13 - 15). Insert the IP: 10.1.1.X. and subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Where X could take values from 25 to 254. It will depend of the number of clients. For your demo you could chose: Client 1: 10.1.1.50 Client 2: 10.1.1.30
Fig. 13: Wireless Network Connection properties.
Fig.14: Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click on Properties.

Fig.15: Setting up a static IP.
2.3 DEMO
This will be the DEMO that you will have to implement the day of the evaluation. The next sections explain the procedure used to test the DEMO and verify that its working.
2.4 OLSR Now, download and install olsrd-0.5.6, which is an implementation of the OLSR protocol. It allows mesh routing for any network equipment and it is available for many operating systems. Link: http://olsr.org/releases/0.5/olsrd-0.5.6-r3-pre-cac1df64dcd5-setup.exe Once we have installed olsrd on windows. Its shortcut will be on the desktop (Fig. 16). It is recommendable to restart the system before use it for the first time.
Fig.16: Olsrd shortcut.
After reboot the system, starts the olsrd program. Select the interface which has our IP address and then click Start (Fig. 17).
Fig. 17: Setting up olsrd on the computer.
Next few tabs are just for information (Figs. 18-20).
Fig. 18: Logs.
Fig. 19: Nodes discovered by the OLSR protocol.
Fig. 20: Routes created by OLSR. Congratulations! At this point, we have finished setting up the routers and the laptops, with these configurations we achieve a WMN with the OLSR routing protocol. 2.4 PERFORMANCE TESTS After everything has been setup, it is possible to do some network analysis. First, use Wireshark to see the OLSR packets are being sent out to the broadcast address of our subnet (10.1.1.255) (Fig. 21). Link: http://media-2.cacetech.com/wireshark/win32/wireshark-win32-1.2.13.exe OLSR is working well. It is using the port 698. Furthermore, we can see the 2 routers and 3 clients connected to the mesh.
Fig. 21: Wireshark analyzing packets sent to the network.

Then, use tracert command to determine the number of hops needed to communicate with Router 1. In this case it achieved 2 hops (Fig. 22)
Fig. 22: Running tracert to see the hop numbers. CONCLUSIONS In this project we learn:

How to set up a Wireless Mesh Network with OLSR step by step. We did some performance tests to see how works the WMN in a real testbed. We observed some properties of WMNs, such as self-forming, self-healing, and selforganizing. o Because, when we disconnected a router, the client that was connected to it automatically connects to another router. How to install DD-WRT firmware into the Linksys WRT54GL Router.
APPENDIX A: SOFTWARE TO DOWNLOAD
DD-WRT v24-sp1 o Download these 2 file images dd-wrt.v24_mini_generic.bin dd-wrt.v24_std_generic.bin o from: http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/dd-wrt/downloads.html Olsrd-0.5.6
o o
Download the version 0.5.6-r3-pre from Nov 2008 from http://www.olsr.org/?q=download
Wireshark-win32-1.2 o Download Windows Installer (32-bit) o from http://www.wireshark.org/download.html
REFERENCES 1. I.F. Akyildiz and Xudong Wang, A survey on wireless mesh networks, IEEE Communications Magazine 43, no. 9 (2005): S23-S30. 2. T. Clausen and P. Jacquet, eds., Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR), 2003. 3. G.R. Hiertz et al., Principles of IEEE 802.11s, in Computer Communications and Networks, 2007. ICCCN 2007. Proceedings of 16th International Conference on, 2007, 1002-1007. 4. Matthew Gast, 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition, 2nd ed. (O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2005). 5. Ron Fuller and Tim Blankenship, Building a Cisco Wireless LAN, 1st ed. (Syngress, 2002). 6. Pejman Roshan and Jonathan Leary, 802.11 Wireless LAN Fundamentals (Cisco Press, 2004). 7. Johnathan Ishmael et al., Deploying Rural Community Wireless Mesh Networks, IEEE Internet Computing 12, no. 4 (2008): 22-29. WEBS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series http://www.dd-wrt.com http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Precautions http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WRT54G_v4_Installation_Tutorial http://timbermheay.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/how-to-install-dd-wrt-on-linksys-wrt54glwireless-router/ OLSR main page (http://olsr.org/?q=download) http://www.e-bulles.be/bubble/Olsr.conf

Building A Wireless Mesh Network

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Building a Wireless Mesh Network

I. INSTALL DD-WRT FIRMWARE INTO THE LINKSYS WRT54GL ROUTER

Download the firmware images.

Fig. 1: Linksys Router Model

Fig. 6: Upgrading to DD-WRT Standard version.

II. SET UP A WIRELESS MESH NETWORK WITH OLSR

Fig. 9: Set the security mode disabled.

Fig. 13: Wireless Network Connection properties.

Fig.14: Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click on Properties.

Fig.15: Setting up a static IP.

Fig.16: Olsrd shortcut.

Fig. 17: Setting up olsrd on the computer.

Next few tabs are just for information (Figs. 18-20).

Fig. 18: Logs.

Fig. 19: Nodes discovered by the OLSR protocol.

Fig. 21: Wireshark analyzing packets sent to the network.

APPENDIX A: SOFTWARE TO DOWNLOAD

Download the version 0.5.6-r3-pre from Nov 2008 from http://www.olsr.org/?q=download

Wireshark-win32-1.2 o Download Windows Installer (32-bit) o from http://www.wireshark.org/download.html

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