Batman-adv Mesh network

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

I have a question about the batman-adv protocol

I have three OpenWRT router running barman-adv working in mesh Each router have two interfaces, one for mesh and one for local subnets for client nodes. To communicate between subnets I have added static routes to point to each other.

I have been informed that, this mesh network should allow the subnets to communicate with each other without static routes. Is that correct or the person who informed me about this functionality is wrong?

Please see the below network diagram and routing table.

Mesh routers are on the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, and the router local subnet is 10.8.10.0/24 || 11.0/24 and 12.0.24

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 1 0 0 br-mesh
default 192.168.1.2 0.0.0.0 UG 2 0 0 br-mesh
default 192.168.1.3 0.0.0.0 UG 3 0 0 br-mesh
192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 1 0 0 br-mesh
192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 2 0 0 br-mesh
192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 3 0 0 br-mesh
10.8.11.0 192.168.1.3 255.255.255.0 UG 0 0 0 br-mesh
10.8.11.0 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 UG 1 0 0 br-mesh
10.8.12.0 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 UG 0 0 0 br-mesh
10.8.12.0 192.168.1.3 255.255.255.0 UG 1 0 0 br-mesh
10.8.10.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1

Thanks in advance

2

Yes, properly configured, batman-adv can unify the various segments of the same subnet. See, for example

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/mesh/batman

3

HI Jeff,
Thank you for your reply.
Can you please let me know how to configure it properly?

The below is my mesh interface settings, its all the same on all devices:
R1 = Mesh 192.168.1.1; Lan 10.8.10.1
R2 = Mesh 192.168.1.2; Lan 10.8.11.1
R3 = Mesh 192.168.1.3; Lan 10.8.12.1

/etc/config/network

config interface 'mesh_dev'
        option proto 'batadv'
        option mesh 'bat0'
        option mtu '1532'

config interface 'mesh'
        option type 'bridge'
        option proto 'static'
        option netmask '255.255.255.0'
        option ifname 'bat0'
        option ipaddr '192.168.1.3'

/etc/config/batman-adv

config 'mesh' 'bat0'
       option bridge_loop_avoidance
       option distributed_arp_table
        option multicast_to_unicast '1'

Many Thanks

4

For meaningful, Layer 2 bridging, the “LAN” segments need to be on the same subnet.

The physical interfaces used by batman-adv do not need IP addresses.

I would also get on a current version. That appears to be old-style config.

5

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your reply.

I will remove the IP from all Mesh devices - Are you suggesting to bridge the WAN Mesh interface with the LAN and change all subsets to one ?

Sorry I have not described my whole setup. I am trying to build a system which will include GSM connection and VPN tunnels for every router. The Mesh connection will be the main method of communication and the GSM as a failover if all paths will brake to a router.

If I do change all LAN subnets to one, how will it affect the VPN and mwan3 fail-over for all GSM interfaces?
I want the R1 to be able to failover to R2 GSM if the R1 GSM connection will go down

At the moment I can achieve the mesh failover with static routing, however, this setup works intermittently.
Would it better to use Bird for dynamic routes for this setup?
I can post all the routing and mwan3 setup. However, maybe it would be best if I will create a separate thread.

The latest version of batman that is available for this device is:
batctl 2018.4-0
kmod-batman-adv 4.4.93+2018.4-0

Many Thanks