Mississippi Network Diagram and Configuration

Buick serves DHCP, and does round-robin load-balancing between 2 DSL lines. (It doesn't actually, someone needs to set up the link to the second line and configure this)

All of the metrix boxes run STP. (We should probably pick a root bridge, and configure it. The SW NAYA metrix looks good. The commons metrix got elected by default.)

The whole network is bridged, and in the 10.11.104.0/22 network.

NEWS

October 28, 2005: CalebPhillips, RussellSenior, and MikeWeinberg replaced the metrix on Cecily's rooftop and re-attached the equipment with real chimney mounting hardware. This node seems to be working just fine now, with good connectivity to Commons. However, currently there seems to be a problem with the switch at Naya that is preventing the network from handing out DHCP or access to the intarweb. The todo list below has the current todo. - CalebPhillips

October 27, 2005: CalebPhillips and RussellSenior managed to get Ed's roof online. Without access to a ladder we had only one option to make progress, and that was to see if the apparently non-functioning metrix on Ed's roof was actually powered on and accessible from the ethernet. Ed graciously let us in to check. This possibility was suggested by Russell's experience with metrix-naya-sw, where the radios did not initially come up after a reboot. Turns out, the metrix was on. Russell was able to connect via the ethernet, and got a weak signal radio signal on 11g, roughly 7 dB SNR. So the problem wasn't a bad POE connection and it was not a failure to load ath_pci either. Caleb suggested that we might have the antennas backwards. Twice, trying to "ifdown ath0" and the "ifdown ath1" froze the metrix. Russell tried swapping ath0 and ath1 in /etc/network/interfaces, rebooted and bingo, 11b/g started working! SNR in the attic jumped to about 30. However, the 11a backhaul was weak. Pinging to Commons worked, but with about a 40% packet loss. Maybe need to repoint the antenna (isn't there a distance tweak for 11a having to do with an ACK timeout or something, but I thought it was for further than we're talking about here). Caleb and Russell retreated to FreshPot to report success and think. Russell, looking out the window at the backfire already pointing at Ed's from NAYA NW, realized there was a chance that Ed's radio might be able to hit NAYA NW, even though it wasn't pointed directly at it, because it was only 600 or so feet away instead of 1500 feet to Commons. Russell changed the metrix-naya-nw ath0 radio to ESSID backhaul-nw and master mode on channel 161 and turned it on, then walked up the block near Ed's, logged in via 802.11g and reconfigured its ath1 (connected to the 11a antenna) to backhaul-nw and rebooted. Bingo! SNR of about 30 dB. Kind of a chewing gum and bailing wire solution, but it is up and passing traffic. - RusselSenior

TODO

• The ethernet switch (actually a router) in Naya seems to be disfunctional, and needs to be replaced ASAP as it is preventing any of the nodes from getting DHCP or anything really useful.
• Ed's is mounted on the chimney, plugged in, talking to metrix-naya-nw. Need to try repointing antenna at Commons roof.
• Metrix-naya-sw currently does not have line-of-sight from Commons mast due to vegetation, but still a reasonable signal, probably want to use metrix-naya-nw for 11a backhaul instead for better line-of-sight, perhaps even replacing metrix-naya-sw with a single-radio device. Another option is to leave both metrixes pointing at Commons. The spanning-tree protocol (STP) should pick one to use and self-heal if one goes down.
• Metrix-naya-nw's ath0 is configured as a master for Ed's on ESSID backhaul-nw, channel 161. If we can get Ed's metrix connected to metrix-commons, then we should change metrx-naya-nw's ath0 into client on the 11a backhaul network and point its backfire antenna at metrix-commons.

• The cisco at 10.11.104.4, supposedly in the SE corner of the NAYA roof, is not reachable from buick. MichaelWeinberg says it is unplugged.

• Add ciscos to the MAC address table below.
• When last rebooted, metrix-naya-sw failed to bring up its radios automatically. Manual remediation of modprobe'ing ath_pci and ifdown/ifup'ing the ath0 and ath1 interfaces got it working. Not sure why ath_pci didn't load initially. Needs investigating.
• Need to install a "repeater" at Cecily's location, attached to the ethernet port on the PoE injector.
• Need to install a "repeater" at Amnesia brewing inside and behind the corrogated steel.

Access points

MAC addresses

Firmware Image

The image for the Metrix boxen is at http://cornerstone.personaltelco.net/~brj/metrix-missnet.img It is setup with all 3 interfaces bridged, and br0 set to 10.11.104.5/22.

To flash:

• Setup a sarge installer pxeboot environment.

  • Instructions at http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s06.html.en

  • The pxelinux included with debian tries to use both the VGA emulation and the serial console. This causes problems. Use pxelinux.0 from http://centerclick.org/net4801/pxelinux/ instead.

  • Use the serial console pxeboot config.
  • Change all the 9600 to 19200 in the config.
  • You probably want to add DEBIAN_FRONTEND=text to the boot options of the kernel you'll use. Use expert26.
• Netboot the metrix into the installer
  • Attach a serial terminal.
  • 19200 baud, 1 bit parity, no flow control
  • Press ctrl+p at the prompt to get to the BIOS

  • boot f0

  • Use expert26. You don't need any extra options.
• Go through the installer up through step 9 (Download installer components). This is where device drivers are loaded.
• After the drivers are loaded, go to a shell.

• wget -O - http://somewhere/foo/metrix-missnet.img | dd of=/dev/discs/disc0/disc bs=1M (don't get it straight from cornerstone, copy it to your machine first)

• Reboot

Note: as of 2005-10-11 this process isn't working for me. The Metrix stalls during the PXELINUX stuff. I think it's probably just an issue with my setup but I've got it working fine using the documentation from Metrix. (- KeeganQuinn)

The way the Metrix website says to do it is actually better. When I was working on the metrixes, though, that documentation didn't exist, to my memory. The debian netboot was simply the easiest way I could find to get a shell netbooted. (- BenjaminJencks)

Can KeeganQuinn or BenjaminJencks please point at or reiterate the referred-to Metrix documentation here? --RussellSenior

[CategoryDocumentation]