6 Batman-advanced is a new approach to wireless networking which does no longer
7 operate on the IP basis. Unlike B.A.T.M.A.N, which exchanges information
8 using UDP packets and sets routing tables, batman-advanced operates on ISO/OSI
9 Layer 2 only and uses and routes (or better: bridges) Ethernet Frames. It
10 emulates a virtual network switch of all nodes participating. Therefore all
11 nodes appear to be link local, thus all higher operating protocols won't be
12 affected by any changes within the network. You can run almost any protocol
13 above B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced, prominent examples are: IPv4, IPv6, DHCP, IPX.
15 This is batman-advanced implemented as Linux kernel driver. It does not depend
16 on any network (other) driver, and can be used on wifi as well as ethernet,
17 vpn, etc ... (anything with ethernet-style layer 2).
18 It compiles against and should work with Linux 2.6.20 - 2.6.31. Supporting older
19 versions is not planned, but it's probably easy to backport it. If you work on a
20 backport, feel free to contact us. :-)
24 To compile against your currently installed kernel, just type:
28 if you want to compile against some other kernel, use:
30 # make KERNELPATH=/path/to/kernel
35 insmod the batman-adv.ko in your kernel:
37 # insmod batman-adv.ko
39 the module is now waiting for activation. You must add some interfaces
40 on which batman can operate. Each interface must be added separately:
42 # echo wlan0 > /proc/net/batman-adv/interfaces
44 ( # echo wlan1 > /proc/net/batman-adv/interfaces )
45 ( # echo eth0 > /proc/net/batman-adv/interfaces )
48 Now batman starts broadcasting on this interface.
49 You can now view the table of originators (mesh participants) with:
51 # cat /proc/net/batman-adv/originators
53 The module will create a new interface "bat0", which can be used as a
56 # ifconfig bat0 inet 192.168.0.1 up
60 If you want topology visualization, your meshnode must be configured
63 # echo "server" > /proc/net/batman-adv/vis
65 Each node is either configured as "server" or as "client" (default:
66 "client"). Clients send their topology data to the server next to them,
67 and server synchronize with other servers. If there is no server
68 configured (default) within the mesh, no topology information will be
69 transmitted. With these "synchronizing servers", there can be 1 or
70 more vis servers sharing the same (or at least very similar) data.
72 When configured as server, you can get a topology snapshot of your mesh:
74 # cat /proc/net/batman-adv/vis
76 This output format is a graphviz formatted text file which can be
77 processed with graphviz-tools like dot.
78 The labels are similar/compatible to the ETX metric, 1.0 means perfect
79 connection (100%), 2.0 means 50%, 3.0 means 33% and so on.
81 Alternatively, a JSON output format is available. The format can be set
82 using by writing either "dot_draw" or "json" into the vis_format file.
83 "dot_draw" is selected by default.
85 echo "json" > /proc/net/batman-adv/vis_format
87 In very mobile scenarios, you might want to adjust the originator
88 interval to a lower value. This will make the mesh more responsive to
89 topology changes, but will also increase the overhead. Please make sure
90 that all nodes in your mesh use the same interval. The default value
91 is 1000 ms (1 second).
93 # echo 1000 > /proc/net/batman-adv/orig_interval
95 To deactivate batman, do:
97 # echo "" > /proc/net/batman-adv/interfaces
102 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced operates on layer 2 and thus all hosts partici-
103 pating in the virtual switch are completely transparent for all proto-
104 cols above layer 2. Therefore the common diagnosis tools do not work as
105 expected. To overcome these problems batctl was created. At the moment
106 the batctl contains ping, traceroute, tcpdump and interfaces to the
107 kernel module settings.
109 For more information, please see the manpage (man batctl).
111 batctl is available on http://www.open-mesh.net/
116 Please send us comments, experiences, questions, anything :)
118 IRC: #batman on irc.freenode.org
119 Mailing-list: b.a.t.m.a.n@open-mesh.net
120 (subscription at https://list.open-mesh.net/mm/listinfo/b.a.t.m.a.n )
122 You can also contact the Authors:
124 Marek Lindner <lindner_marek@yahoo.de>
125 Simon Wunderlich <siwu@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de>