Sensor-grid Project
Design
Getting Started
Prepare Pi
Set Locale and Keyboard Layout
$ sudo raspi-config
- Add en-US locale
- Change keyboard layout
Configure Ethernet
In /etc/network/interfaces add the following lines:
auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
Disable conflicting services
$ sudo service dhcpcd stop
$ sudo update-rc.d dhcpcd disable
Install Software
Install dependencies
To build batman-adv and alfred, you will need the following packages:
- git
- libnl-3-dev
- libnl-genl-3-dev
- libcap-dev
- libgps-dev
- gpsd (optional, assuming we add gps modules later)
Build batctl
Pull and build batctl from the OpenMesh source repository
$ git clone https://git.open-mesh.org/batctl.git
$ cd batctl
$ sudo make install
Build alfred
Pull and build alfred from the OpenMesh source repository
$ git clone https://git.open-mesh.org/alfred.git
$ cd alfred
$ sudo make install
Copy the alfred.service from config to /etc/systemd/system/alfred.service.
$ sudo cp config/alfred.service /etc/systemd/system/alfred.service
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start alfred.service
To check status of the running service:
$ sudo systemctl status alfred.service
And to have alfred come up at boot:
$ sudo systemctl enable alfred.service
Configure Pi
Install batman-adv module
$ sudo echo "batman-adv" >> /etc/modules
Configure network interfaces
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet6 manual
wireless-channel 1
wireless-essid killer-mesh
wireless-mode ad-hoc
wireless-ap 02:12:34:56:78:9A
pre-up /sbin/ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1532
auto bat0
iface bat0 inet6 auto
pre-up /usr/local/sbin/batctl if add wlan0
Check interfaces
Check batctl
TODOs, Short-term
- decide how to install batctl
- Debian package is too old
- create a new package? not a bad idea, can keep a local .deb
- Establish serial communication, maybe avoid needing to start on wifi?
Electron App
The desktop app will likely function on a layer much higher than batman-adv. As batman-adv networking will be largely transparent to us, we should expect to write layer 7 software as we are accustomed. This may mean that a basic client/server protocol could work for many functions, with gossip protocols to distribute data along the network where nodes can no longer see all other nodes in the network.
Points of Interest
- IP addresses aren't strictly necessary, routing can be done by hwaddr
- A super-peer may be necessary to offer IPs if we decide we need them
Connect to a Raspberry Pi via SSH over USB
Read and write from serial port with Raspberry Pi
Ad-hoc Wifi Networks - might be worth dropping in on the net sometimes
Notes on how to configure batman-adv on Raspberry Pi 3
Looks like batman-adv is already a part of the Debian kernel distro!
Gossip Protocols: