Babel
*****
Babel is a loop-avoiding distance-vector routing protocol roughly
based on HSDV and AODV, but with provisions for link cost estimation
and redistribution of routes from other routing protocols.
Installation
************
$ make
$ su -c 'make install'
If compiling for OpenWRT, you will probably want to say something like
$ make CC=mipsel-linux-gcc PLATFORM_DEFINES='-march=mips32'
Setting up a network for use with Babel
***************************************
1. Set up every node's interface
================================
On every node, set up the wireless interface:
# iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc channel 11 essid "my-mesh-network"
# ifconfig eth1 up
2. Set up every node's IP addresses
===================================
You will need to make sure that all of your nodes have a unique IPv6
address, and/or a unique IPv4 address.
On every node, run something like:
# ip addr add 192.168.13.33/32 dev eth1
# ip -6 addr add $(ahcp-generate-address -r)/128 dev eth1
You will find the ahcp-generate-address utility, which can generate
random IPv6 addresses according to RFC 4193, in the ahcpd package.
3. Start the routing daemon
===========================
Run Babel on every node, specifying the set of interfaces it should consider:
# babel eth1
If your node has multiple interfaces which you want to participate in
the Babel network, just list them all:
# babel eth0 eth1 sit1
4. Setting up an Internet gateway
=================================
If you have one or more Internet gateways on your mesh network, you
will want to set them up so that they redistribute the default route.
You will want to say something like
# babel -C 'redistribute metric 128' eth1
You may also be more selective in the routes you redistribute, for
instance by specifying the interface over which the route goes out:
# babel -C 'redistribute if eth0 metric 128' eth1
or by constraining the prefix length:
# babel -C 'redistribute ip ::/0 le 64 metric 128' \
-C 'redistribute ip 0.0.0.0/0 le 28 metric 128' \
eth1
You may also want to constrain which local routes (routes to local
interface addresses) you advertise:
# babel -C 'redistribute local if eth1' -C 'redistribute local deny' \
-C 'redistribute metric 128' \
eth1
If you find all of this too complicated and error-prone (as I do), you
may want to consider autoconfiguring your routing domain using AHCP:
http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/ahcp/
Juliusz Chroboczek