Yes a "managed" switch is required for the UBNT devices.  In reality, the switch needs to support 802.1Q. 

The main node at my house is a Rocket M2.  It is connected to a Netgear GS108E switch.  I personally believe everyone using the UBNT gear needs a managed switch or two.  In my QTH setup, I have my RocketM2 and a NanoStation Loco M900 connected using dtd-linking.  This lets me combine the 2.4 GHz mesh with my 900 MHz mesh.

I wanted to get a tunnel client using Ubiquiti gear as well.   That way someone connecting to be can also have the superior performance of the UBNT gear for their local mesh.

It is also much easier to find a UBNT node and a switch such as the GS105E than a WRT54GS. 

I am using a NanoStation M5 for my client setup.  This gave me the ability to not have my nodes connecting via wifi.

Clint, AE5CA

On one end was the camera, in this case a ubiquit AirCam. On the other end was a laptop. Both these devices directly plugged into an adjacent Ubiquiti 'node' with a cat5 cable. The nodes were out-of-box running the Ubiquiti airOS operating system.

We could have loaded bbhn firmware on the 2 nodes and defined the camera as a service in setup--a 2 node mesh with same exact hardware setup. The performance (given the 802.11 protocol used) should be identical regardless if airOS vs. bbhn firmware.

This test shows we've not yet found the range limit of what this hardware can do for point-to-point line of sight under the following conditions:

• clear Fresnel zone
• over large body of water
• island 20+ miles offshore and no source of competing signals on that end

I found the answer here http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/section-blog/38-software-faqs/61-can-i-restore-my-router-to-its-factory-state.html except there are no linksys files in the resulting list of files available.  

I tried the tftp method, but I couldn't get the router to respond.  tried various ip addresses, passwords but it always failed. 

I have the wrt54g v4

question regarding the instructions:

1) Are these lines needed for the forwarding rules (since they are commented in the docs):

iptables -A FORWARD -i $LAN -o tun+ -j ACCEPT

iptables -A FORWARD -i tun+ -o $LAN -j ACCEPT

iptables -A FORWARD -i $WIFI -o tun+ -j ACCEPT

iptables -A FORWARD -i tun+ -o $WIFI -j ACCEPT

2) if they are needed, can they be inserted into /etc/firewall.user instead of /etc/init.d/firewall?

73, K5DLQ

thanks Clint. 

I read your ticket and we in Montgomery County are in a similar situation.  Would like to get some infrastructure in place via vtun until we can fly a node up to 700' on a tower.

I have a WRT54GS (1.1.2) with vtun installed.  Would you like to coordinate and see if we can get them working first?  I also have a Ubi Bullet M2 to test with.  I have not loaded 3.0.0preview on anything just yet.

if you would like to try, email at k5dlq@arrl.net

I can open a port in my firewall and configure for you to connect.  I am upgrading to V3 beta (-20-v3) to test a few things now.

Darryl

WA2KWR, Frank Columbus, and myself AE6XE, Joe Ayers, tested a 32 mile link.  The results exceeded our expectations.  Here's the write up and link to pictures including 32.5Mb live HD video file captured over the link (sorry no audio on the camera).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wmcd8jfndw3p47w/AADpav22c7yOR1Urgx5A18L7a#/

Test Date: September 27, 2014

Test Time: From 1049 PDT until 1135 PDT.

Test Location:   Catalina Island, CA AVX Airport <-> Newport Beach, CA

Geographical Description and Equipment Used:

The link distance was 32 statute miles and WA2KWR dish was aimed 242 degrees TN.

The WA2KWR dish was a 29 dBi L-Com HG5829D configured for horizontal polarization and the radio was a Ubiquiti Bullet M5 Titanium. Located at a  small park near the intersection of Cliff Dr and El Modena Ave in Newport Beach with an approximate elevation of 70 feet MSL.

The AE6XE dish was a 30 dBi Ubiquiti Rocket Dish RD-5G-30 running vertical and horizontal polarization and the radio was a Ubiquiti Rocket M5.  Located at the NE side (nearest the coastal cliff) of Catalina Airport KAVX at an approximate elevation of 1550 feet MSL.

Frequency Used:

The test was performed running a 20 Mhz channel on CH 149 – 5.745 GHz. This was done operating under FCC Part 97, Amateur Radio Service

Results:

Initial Signal Readings:  –72 thru –76 dBm signal strength with ~20 dB SNR.

After antenna adjustments at the Catalina site (AE6XE): ~ -65 dBm signal strength with 23 db SNR

The HD video was impressive even with a few very short signal drop outs.

Other Technical Data:

Both ends were running Ubiquiti airOS 5.5.8. Both were in bridge mode where WA2KWR was the AP and AE6XE was the station. Both stations were  mounted using temporary tripods and were battery powered.

Note: This symbol “~” indicates an approximation.

I have been working on getting a tunnel server running for months. I have a set oflinksys 1.0.1 WRT54GS boxes which work as a tunnel sever/client. I have yet to get a Ubiquiti box to work. I did get close with version 1.0.1.  The nodes would connect but the OLSR would not join the networks. 

I am trying again to get it going this time under 3.0.0. 

I submitted ticket 65 to ask for some help to get the changes to get 3.0.0  to work with tunnels documented. See ubnt.hsmm-mesh.org for more info. 

Clint

 Met with the Baton Rouge Amatuer Radio Club last night and found several more people that are starting to experiment with Broadband Hamnet. Turned out they have been using it for logging at  Field Day.  I passed out an info sheet and I hope that I can get more experimenters going.  If you are in the Baton Rouge area please get involved.

Similar question, I'd like to install DD-WRT firmware on an extra HSMM-MESH linksys WRT54g V4 box I have here. Tried to do it in the HSMM-MESH administration page but it wouldn't do it.

With your nodes all running 3.0.0 and having the same SSID I would of expected them to connect. At least that has been my experience. 3.0.0 will not connect to prior firmware revisions but you would not have even seen those nodes unless you changes the default SSID. 

My experience with 3.0.0 has definitely been different than what you describ. I have over 20 nodes spread out over six sites. A mix of mainly Ubiquiti with some linksys remaining from old installs. Mine are connecting and maintaining a connection. I have several connected back to back with 2.4 GHz being the majority of the nodes by I do have a pair of m5 NanoStations and a pair of M900 NanoStation Locos on my mesh. Back to bak connections tie the three frequencies together. 

I would be curious to know why we are having such different results. If you will email me at my call at arrl.net I will we can arrange a time to talk on the phone see if we can work through the issues.

Clint, AE5CA

Hi John;

Not many nodes up yet in the ABQ area, though there seems to be a bit of interest.  Not sure about Rio Rancho.  WB5ORT is the only guy I know of out that direction who may have an active node.

Give a shout on the NM Mesh Yahoo group and see what you can scare up.

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nm-mesh/>

Mark K5LXP

Albuquerque, NM

KG6JEI:

 Thanks for the reply. I guess I didn't do enough testing to verify the problem.  I will do more testing and report back.

 This makes administering the network more doable.  I appreciate the help.

Cory

N7FV

It already does.

Upstream (openwrt) has a report in their wiki that some times hardware just doesn't reboot with a reboot command.

I've never seen it personally so I can't really comment on what's going on there other than to say over 200+ flashes I don't belive I have ever had this happen to me.

Would be interesting if anyone can ever repeatedly reproduce this what the backend reports is happening.

EDIT:

Sorry noticed you had a distinction between a reboot and power cycle. No way to turn off power on hardware like this, no off switch inside them,  that is external (at the wall supply )