Mesh Setup Guide for OpenWRT?

Software
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Hello! I’m working with the Heltec router product and running into a few configuration issues. Is there a simple guide somewhere on setting up and using 802.11s mesh over Halow somewhere? My use case is for a first responder MANET radio (that doesn’t cost tens of thousands) - but I’m struggling to get consistent mesh setups and Heltec’s info is pretty thin. Just thought I’d reach out here as this community seems to be more active.

I’d be interested in a BATMAN guide as well because that gets even deeper (and arguably more in line with my use case) but I’m not holding my breath for that one, haha.

Thanks!

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Looking at the Heltec docs, it looks like they have leveraged most of our SDK directly! Hopefully they’ve included much of the mesh configuration pieces as well!

We have some documentation being written around configuring Mesh, but it is largely targeting our evaluation kits.

If you navigate to “Quick Config” in the UI. Is Mesh Point available as a mode you can select for the HaLow device?

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Thanks so much for replying! I know this isn’t a pure MM device but it is apparent that Heltec did a lot of plug and play with the code base. Even the URLs for the device are Morse. Although, the quick settings don’t have the ability to set the mesh options - instead you have to go through a wizard OR the advanced settings.

The wizard presents you with two initial options:

  1. Standard Halow (STA/AP)
  2. Halow Mesh 802.11s

When you select the mesh option, you then get two new options:

  1. Mesh Point
  2. Mesh Gate (contains a collocated network)

If you select Mesh Point, you get three new options

  1. Extender
  2. Bridge
  3. None

In my miniscule understanding, the Extender is the right mode here as I need DHCP on the wired LAN but I can never get the Halow link established. If I have one node set as a gate with an upstream link then everything works great, but in my use case this isn’t a feasible setup.

Maybe my use case will help explain better…

I want to use these as a MANET radio for wildland firefighters and SAR technician. In this use, the user would attach their EUD (phone or computer) to the device over LAN (or USB). That would put the users all on the same LAN so that their devices could seamlessly share data using ATAK. There likely wouldn’t be an upstream network, at least not ordinarily. The goal is simply to be a transparent link between the user devices.

If I can get 802.11s working, then I can further optimize with BATMAN to claw back throughput.

Again, thank you for helping!

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Yep, I understand your setup. It sounds like you might actually want to use “bridge” so that all devices end up on the same Layer 2 network, but we can go over that later. Let’s continue using “extender” for now.

Judging by your comment that everything is functioning when the Mesh Gate is started, I can speculate what is going wrong.

Just to confirm, in your current configuration with only Mesh Points, under the Advanced Configuration → Network → Wireless tab, do you see the other mesh devices showing in the Associated Stations list?

If so, your connectivity issue is most likely related to DHCP. In the extender mode, on the HaLow side, all devices are DHCP clients, and as a result won’t be getting IP addresses! Once you add a mesh gate, it will be adding a DHCP server to your network, issuing addresses to all the devices allowing IP layer traffic to work!

I don’t know much about MANET. How do the endpoint devices (laptops/phones) normally identify/discover each other in these networks? I’m seeing mixed answers online - including the use of IPv6

I’m hesitating to recommend configuring one particular device as a DHCP server, as that sounds like something that won’t be as straightforward to determine which device should be the dedicated DHCP server in the field.

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Which Heltec product did you get? The Heltec HaLow Dongles (HD01) don’t support open Mesh mode, only H7608 does (email Richard to get a refund). HD01 only allows AP/STA mode (yes their documentation says it can do Mesh, but that’s because they copied Morse’s code).

If you have the H7608 as the Access Point, yes you can select " Mesh" then “Mesh Gate” . Then on the HD01 select “Mesh” and “Mesh Point” and that works, as AP/STA’s. You need multiple H7608’s to actually get a Mesh. Multiple HD01’s don’t actually form a mesh, just individual AP/STA connections. I can’t seem to get a HD01 with Mesh Point settings to act as anything more than a Halow Client when connecting to Morse’s HalowLink1.

If you have the Morse HalowLink1 set as an EasyMesh Controller, you can set the HD01 as a Halow Client (Bridge) and it works perfect connected to the Mesh Controller or to any of the Mesh Agents (HalowLink1’s) if you’re roaming. That’s working perfectly for me.

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I am indeed using the router (7608) to do this. I have three in hand and when one is set as a gate I can see all three in the associated stations area.

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I assume the issue is DHCP as well. In my head, I’m thinking DHCP over LAN/WiFi to connect the EUD and then something else for the Halow side so they don’t fight with each other to establish link - but I’m unsure how to set that up.

With these specific units, if I go with the bridge then I no longer have access to the control panel over any interface - it’s like it changes internal IP address and I can’t see what it is.

As an aside - Does MM have a product that would fit in this space (small, low power requirements) that would be more successful than these Heltecs? I’m a system integrator more than PCB developer, so I’m more inclined to obtain finished devices that I can incorporate into my rugged ecosystem instead. I’m open to ideas there.

Here is my current LoRa product that will eventually be supplanted by this Halow system.

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With these specific units, if I go with the bridge then I no longer have access to the control panel over any interface - it’s like it changes internal IP address and I can’t see what it is.

The reason I suggest to use bridge is it bonds the HaLow and ethernet interfaces into the same Layer 2 domain. This will help you not think about layer 3 routing, and in the case of some of our extender nodes, you won’t need to worry about NAT, which should make communication between attached end-point devices (laptops/phones), a bit more seamless as they will be in the same subnet/address space.
What’s happening when you select this, is the radio is actually losing its IP address. The device will be trying to act as a DHCP client and looking for a DHCP server where it can request a lease.

You will find, there are ways to access the device even when it doesn’t have an IPv4 address. All devices should have a unique IPv6 link local address (if IPv6 is enabled) based on the MAC address. At least for Windows endpoint devices, you can simply use that address to connect to the radio. Unfortunately there are some quirks around the web URI standard here which does complicate this on Linux/OSX.
If the device has an mdns service running, you can often still connect to the WebUI using the hostname in your browser despite the device not having an IPv4 address. Your browser/host will send an MDNS query, and if the device responds with an answer containing an IPv6 address, your browser can then establish the connection that way.

I’m thinking DHCP over LAN/WiFi to connect the EUD and then something else for the Halow side so they don’t fight with each other to establish link - but I’m unsure how to set that up.

It might need some thought around the network as a whole. I’ve been doing some reading on distributed dhcp servers and other methods of IP address allocation in MANETs. Nothing has really stood out yet as the “best solution”. But I have an idea:

You could configure every radio with it’s own unique static IP, and a DHCP server, but a wide subnet mask. This will mean you have multiple DHCP servers on the network (for automatically assigning addresses to the end devices attaching directly to the radios) but still give you access to every other device on the subnet. This is basically a naive distributed DHCP.
This will mean you can always access the radio device, but also let you bridge the interfaces so you don’t need to worry about layer 3 routing. However, it could get complicated in the sense that you need to then be setting unique IPv4 addresses for each device (and then I start leaning to IPv6).

You could modify it slightly, and perform some address collision detection before assigning an address, but this will require some software development, rather than just configuration.

I intend to set something up in a few days using our evaluation kits - which the Heltec devices are based on - so I can make a more concrete recommendation.

Does MM have a product that would fit in this space (small, low power requirements) that would be more successful than these Heltecs?

As we are strictly a chip company, we try to let our customers build the products! The HaLowLink1 was a bit of an exception to that. So unfortunately no, we don’t have a product that would be more suitable than the Heltecs.
I’m confident we can configure the Heltec devices in a way which suitable for your application.

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