Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

blog.apnic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 90 posts

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#41

Post by nicoechaniz »

zokier wrote: post #30

Ath9k is not going to win any performance awards anymore, but it is still pretty rock solid chipset and more importantly has afaik the very best foss drivers. Bit odd that they are basing their firmware on OpenWrt 15.05, which is over three years old now. I guess flashing in 18.xx shouldn't be that hard

hi NicoEchániz here, project coordinator for the LibreRouter.

The current development version of LibreMesh[1], the LibreRouter firmware, is based on OpenWRT 18.06.1.

The soon to come first batch of production LibreRouter units will come with this version pre-installed.

[1] https://github.com/libremesh/lime-packages.git

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#42

Post by simplymath »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #31

These are cool and all, but here's a naive question. Where do these community networks connect to the internet at large? Wouldn't this violate some sort of ToS from the provider?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone

In general, those ToS would likely be struck down under precedent. Additionally, it's bad news for an ISP to cut off their low-cost, ethical competition that will only help your cause. Source: I built the internet backbone for this: https://www.nycmesh.net/. If your city is on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point, you can buy data center internet like we did. It runs about $1,000/mo and can serve about as many people (by over-selling the bandwidth 20X as is standard in industry).

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#43

Post by nicoechaniz »

rwj wrote: post #8

Perhaps I missed it, but did anyone see the range for these routers?

Hi, NicoEchániz, from the LibreRouter team here.

The routers have been tested to work over 3Km links in existing mesh network deployments with very good performance.

Depending on the antennas you use range can be much more, but the LibreRouter is specifically designed for a Mesh setup where links tend to be < 3Km.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#44

Post by nicoechaniz »

stamps wrote: post #24

PFsense on a PC Engines APU is a good alternative for now if anyone is looking for something today.

The purpose of the LibreRouter is to bring to the hardware side what we have accomplished on the software side with LibreMesh. AlterMundi and other partner organizations help build technologies for "geek free" community networks.

General purpose hardware can always be adapted if you have the skills and the money to spend on your project. We work from the global south with global south realities in mind.

A LibreRouter node, with outdoor casing, three sector antennas, GPS module, pigtails, etc. will cost around $150 and will be ready to deploy by non-expert users following simple instructions.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#45

Post by simplymath »

walrus01 wrote: post #4

From a WISP point to multipoint radio perspective, pure mesh is a really bad idea (due to half duplex medium and CSMA hell). I admire the internet research work that APNIC does but it looks to me like they're re-inventing the wheel here, versus mature and stable, relatively low cost commercial 5 GHz band point to multipoint radio platforms like the Ubiquiti Rocket5AC gen2 and its associated CPEs, Cambium PMP450/PMP45…

Your half-duplex points literally do not apply to the librerouter. It has 2 separated 5Ghz radios and a separate 2.4 for local access.

Before you tell others how to build the network they already run, you might take 10 minutes to find out that they've managed to serve otherwise unconnected individuals and communities in remote parts of Argentina.

Sure, this isn't cutting edge tech, but it's cheap, scalable, and easy to upgrade. If you want to help these projects, you can find a 802.11ac chip with FOSS drivers. Until that happens, their hands our tied. Sorry not sorry.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#46

Post by nicoechaniz »

thecosas wrote: post #39
ausjke wrote: post #20

libremesh supports a few models: https://libremesh.org/docs/en_quick_starting_guide.html ubnt's devices are not that expensive and may be the easy way out, unless you really want to do all the firmware testing, equipment in a water-proof enclosure etc. Plus this project is in lack of a web GUI to manage the nodes, you have to use CLI to do that, might be hard to find qualified IT workers in remote areas. I also agree…

Looks like their security certificate expired a few days ago.

thanks for noticing. will fix

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#47

Post by JustSomeNobody »

nicoechaniz wrote: post #40
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #31

These are cool and all, but here's a naive question. Where do these community networks connect to the internet at large? Wouldn't this violate some sort of ToS from the provider?

hi NicoEchániz here, project coordinator for the LibreRouter. There are many different realities regarding the connectivity from a community network to the rest of the Internet. In the case of AlterMundi - the organization steering LibreRouter - , the communities that are connected in our region in Argentina are registered as a national non-profit operator, we have our own ASN and public IP ranges and we do BGP peeri…

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that to me.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#48

Post by simplymath »

ausjke wrote: post #20

libremesh supports a few models: https://libremesh.org/docs/en_quick_starting_guide.html ubnt's devices are not that expensive and may be the easy way out, unless you really want to do all the firmware testing, equipment in a water-proof enclosure etc. Plus this project is in lack of a web GUI to manage the nodes, you have to use CLI to do that, might be hard to find qualified IT workers in remote areas. I also agree…

I'm sure the 20,000 network users around the world tried "the easy way" before investing considerable time and resources into developing "the better way."

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#49

Post by simplymath »

ausjke wrote: post #20

libremesh supports a few models: https://libremesh.org/docs/en_quick_starting_guide.html ubnt's devices are not that expensive and may be the easy way out, unless you really want to do all the firmware testing, equipment in a water-proof enclosure etc. Plus this project is in lack of a web GUI to manage the nodes, you have to use CLI to do that, might be hard to find qualified IT workers in remote areas. I also agree…

libremap.net

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#50

Post by simplymath »

nicoechaniz wrote: post #44
stamps wrote: post #24

PFsense on a PC Engines APU is a good alternative for now if anyone is looking for something today.

The purpose of the LibreRouter is to bring to the hardware side what we have accomplished on the software side with LibreMesh. AlterMundi and other partner organizations help build technologies for "geek free" community networks. General purpose hardware can always be adapted if you have the skills and the money to spend on your project. We work from the global south with global south realities in mind. A LibreRouter…

<3
Post reply on HN