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Aredn on Raspberry Pi 4

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KD9QDL
Aredn on Raspberry Pi 4
hello this is John, KD9QDL of auburn indiana and I am wondering if i can run aredn on a raspberry Pi 4. If possible could you direct me where i can download thye programming.
Thanks
w6bi
w6bi's picture
AREDN software
John, the AREDN software is derived from OpenWrt, which is designed to run on wireless access points.   RPIs run Raspbian (now known as RaspiOS), a version of Debian Linux, which is similar to OpenWrt, but there are substantial differences.
While you could load the OLSR routing daemon that AREDN uses onto an RPI, which would make it appear as a node, there are no facilities to move any wireless radio available for an RPI into the ham radio bands.

Orv W6BI
KD1HA
KD1HA's picture
Bruce, W1BAW did a Raspberry


Bruce, W1BAW did a Raspberry Pi version found on github that I used on BBHN several years ago and with a few changes it may work with AREDN but don't expect to much. It did work better than the Linksys and it also had a tunneling page that I first ran my network with about 5 or 6 nodes.

Denis 

AE6XE
AE6XE's picture
AREDN on Rasberry Pi does not
AREDN on Rasberry Pi does not have an open source driver, as previously mentioned, that we can tweak to put into the ham radio only channels.  Thus, it can not be fully supported by AREDN with same capability that all devices have.      There are a few unique customizations to OLSR and latest version is not available with numerous fixes to be compatible.  Long story short, anyone that tries to install OLSR, is a problematic situation to make a Rasberry Pi look like an AREDN device.
KF7BWS
KF7BWS's picture
Aredn on Raspberry Pi 4
There is now a version of OpenWRT available to set up an OpenWRT router on a Rasberry Pi. Would this help in getting AREDN on the Pi?
AE6XE
AE6XE's picture
A compelling reason needs to
A compelling reason needs to be identified to port AREDN to a Rasberry Pi.  This isn't a device we can directly put on the roof, and already good coverage of a device in the ham shack -- an hap ac lite.     Technically, there would need to be a Qualcomm wireless chipset that is supported by the opensource drivers AREDN uses (linux wireless ath9k or ath10k drivers).   This might be done by adding a compatible USB wireless adaptor.   Sorry to say, for me, this is far down on the list to consider looking at any time soon.

Joe AE6XE
KF7BWS
KF7BWS's picture
A compelling reason needs to
I understand the priority levels in development and yes a USB adapter for wireless would need to be added to the Pi.

having a capable compute device on the OLSR Mesh network for vehicles, field days servers, wireless cams, weather stations, high altitude balloon and etc would be of valuable use. I do not know about others asking about this but for me I am only interested in having OLSR network connectivity on the Pi.
AE6XE
AE6XE's picture
Consider adding a GL-USB150
Consider adding a GL-USB150 running AREDN to the PI.   A USB device would be needed regardless.   This is the same hardware footprint, just running AREDN on the USB device instead of the PI running AREDN with a driver to the USB wireless chipset.    If longer range is needed, eg to optimize power and weight for a high altitude ballon, open up the USB150 case to attach in a better high gain custom antenna.    Although, I think I'd prefer 5GHz for a ballon application over 2GHz. 

Joe AE6XE
KF7BWS
KF7BWS's picture
Consider adding a GL-USB150
Great idea TNX that works for me.
KF7BWS
KF7BWS's picture
https://openwrt.org/toh
AB4YY
Here's a GL-USB-150 portable setup

The attached image (in PDF) shows a portable stand-alone GL-USB-150 setup I made a few years ago.  It worked nicely.
The GL-USB-150 could connect to a nearby (yes, not far!) AREDN node and the RPI-Zero-W could be connected by normal (part 95) WiFi like from a laptop.   Connections from the mesh or from (Part 95) WiFi would both have access to the RPI-Zero-W (and mesh) which I installed Apache web server and had some pretty web pages on it.  And the Part 95 side as usual was secured and required a passphrase to get in.

I've since re-purposed the GL-USB-150 and used it for a Geiger counter (https://mightyohm.com/blog/products/geiger-counter/).  :)

- Mike

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