Mississippi Network Diagram and Configuration

Buick serves DHCP and does NAT for our DSL line. All of the metrix boxes run ["STP"]. The whole network is bridged, and in the 10.11.104.0/22 network.

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TODO

• Add connectable interfaces to eth0, ath0 and ath1 so that recovery from bridge failure is easier.

• Followup on madwifi.org ticket [http://www.madwifi.org/ticket/166 166], which describes our problems with metrix-west.

• What's the deal with Broadcom-based client devices connected to Atheros based APs? Why doesn't it work? Under what circumstances (if any) will it?
• Decommission (redundant) Cisco AP on Commons
• 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 metrix-naya-nw's ath0 into client on the 11a backhaul network and point its backfire antenna at metrix-commons.
• The Sector antennas on Naya might benefit from being repointed...
• Install link to second DSL line (in bookstore) and setup round-robin load balancing
• 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

See ChannelFrequencyChart for reasoning about channels, and channel choices.

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]