slideshow 1 slideshow 2 slideshow 3 slideshow 4 slideshow 5 slideshow 6 slideshow 7 slideshow 8 slideshow 9 slideshow 10 slideshow 11

Alerts

There are NO alerts at this time. 

News


AREDN Production Release 3.25.5.0

 

Major Enhancements

This release heralds some major changes with AREDN® and we encourage you to take a moment to read about them below,
 

Babel Routing

The AREDN® team is introducing Babel as a replacement for the older OLSR routing technology. OLSR has served us well, but has many problems we’ve had to live with over the years. Babel, on the other hand, has many qualities which make it a good fit AREDN®. First, it’s a loop free protocol so, regardless of how the network is changing, routing loops will never form in the network. Second, it has a   substantially lower traffic overhead so is good for slow, low bandwidth links. Third, the protocol adapts to the differences between wired, wireless, and tunneled links. Fourth, as a layer-3 routing protocol, it integrates easily with AREDN®. Fifth, it’s highly configurable. Finally, it’s simple. This video is a great primer on Babel.
In this release Babel and OLSR will run side-by-side, with Babel routing used where available, and OLSR used otherwise. No configuration is necessary. You will see a three-stars symbol on neighbors which support Babel, and a new three-stars symbol on...
Read More
Updated date: Wednesday, May 7, 2025 - 12:28


AREDN Release Candidate Available


Nightly build 20250415 has been designated the release candidate for the next production release.

In it the AREDN® team is introducing Babel as a replacement for the older OLSR routing technology.   It's been seen to improve network stability and throughput.  In this release Babel and OLSR will run side-by-side, with Babel routing used where available, and OLSR used otherwise.  Already 25% of the nodes on the network are running a Babel-enabled nightly build and we've seen and heard anecdotally of significant improvements in network stability.

Additionally this release adds PtP (point to point) and PtMP (point to multipoint) RF modes to complement our existing AdHoc mode.  We’ve see notable throughput and latency improvements when using these modes, especially with 802.11ac devices. This  holds true even when mixing radios from different manufacturers.

Assuming no big issues arise (and it's been very calm the last couple of months of nightly builds) we expect the production release to occur early next month.

We believe this is a great release candidate.  But we encourage you to install it on your nodes where you can; we want to hear from you what you think of it!

The AREDN development team
 
Updated date: Wednesday, April 16, 2025 - 09:09


New Experimental Radio Modes and SSID


Following on the heels of the inclusion of the Babel routing protocol to the AREDN software is another significant enhancement: nightly build 20250219 adds PtP (Point to Point) and PtMP (Point to MultiPoint) configurations. These protocols can be found in the Radio section of the AREDN UI:

 

 

Here's a brief explanation of each of them:

 

  • Mesh PtMP: This makes a node act like your common access point, where Mesh Station nodes can connect to it, but not to each other, and the Mesh PtMP can only connect to Station nodes.

 

  • Mesh PtP: Same as above except only a single Station is permitted to connect, specified by a MAC address.

 

  • Mesh Station: Can connect to a Mesh PtMP or, if it’s the authorized node, a Mesh PtP. It cannot connect to anything else.

 

The new modes also require a new SSID. This changed SSID is a necessary by-product of how these modes are implemented. Our current Mesh uses the WiFi Ad-Hoc radio...

Read More
Updated date: Wednesday, February 19, 2025 - 12:37


Introducing a New Network Protocol


The AREDN team is introducing a new networking technology into the nightly builds with the ultimate long term goal of replacing OLSR.

OLSR has many faults which AREDN has lived with for a long time. For the last couple of years we’ve been looking at alternatives and making incremental steps in the codebase to allow us to introduce something new. We can finally do that by adding Babel (https://www.irif.fr/~jch/software/babel/) to AREDN.

Babel has a number of qualities which make it good for AREDN. First, it’s a loop free protocol so, regardless of how the network is changing, routing loops will never form in the network. Second, it’s primarily a reactive protocol which sends changes to neighbors when needed rather than broadcasting its state continually. Third, the protocol understands the difference between wired, wireless, and tunneled links –  the three link types AREDN utilizes. Fourth, it’s a layer-3 routing protocol, which integrates easily with how AREDN already operates. Fifth, it’s highly configurable which will allow an optimal setup for our use case. Finally, it’s simple.

We considered a number of options, and another contender was B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced. Unfortunately this protocol is not a good fit for AREDN as it primarily focuses on level-2 wireless networking. AREDN needs a protocol which can do more. We...

Read More
Updated date: Monday, February 17, 2025 - 18:31

Pages

Announcements


NG1P April 2022 Wireless Mesh Using AREDN

Bill Richardson NG1P presents his views on organizing an AREDN mesh network in Maine at the ARRL Convention in Lewiston, Maine on April 1 and 2, 2022. 
The presentation is here.


AE6XE on YouTube Hamfest 23 May 2020

Joe AE6XE described typical AREDN deployment scenarios with Ham Radio 2.0 host Jason KC5HWB. He offered advice on how to get started and choosing suitable devices.
His presentation slide deck is here.

Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer