Network Test Saturday, October 30th

As an AREDN network grows in size and/or complexity, it will eventually encounter a packet storm that would pretty much cripple its traffic-carrying capabilities until the storm fades out, which could be hours.  (The writers of the OLSR mobile routing protocol probably never envisioned it having to handle networks of the size amateurs are creating.)  This is significantly limiting the growth and performance of our networks.

Recently released nightly build 571 provides a substantial amount of resistance to these storms.  As a test of the network's robustness (or not) Saturday October 30th at 9 a.m. local we'll attempt to link as many AREDN networks together as possible.  

We did a 'test test' earlier in the week on the West Coast when the Southern California and Bay area networks were linked.  Node counts got up to a bit over 800 and few reports were received, so we're ready for Saturday!

Test preparation

Prior to Saturday's test, it's recommended that in order to protect your node(s) that you upgrade them to the latest nightly build (599 as of this writing).  This is especially important on nodes that pass data through (as opposed to being an end-point on a network).  

Also prior to Saturday, establish some baseline performance measurements on your network.  Suggestions are:

• Quality of VOIP phone calls
• iperf throughput...