Why is max_peer_links limited to 10?

Software
1

Hi,

Currently, I’m developing L3 mesh devices.

I found both max_peer_links of wpa_supplicant_s1g and MORSE_CMD_MESH_PEER_LINKS_MAX of morse_cli are limited to 10.

Is there any special reason for such restrictions?

802.11ah has a longer communication range and higher node density than other wireless LANs.

Due to the max_peer_links constraint, nodes within a sufficiently close distance frequently engage in two-hop communication, even when traffic is light.

Best,

Jongsoo

2

Hi @jsjeong

There is a limited amount of memory in the chip, and each mesh node requires a group temporal key per link. As a result, we’ve limited the mesh peers per node to 10.

Note that this only prevents the number of direct connections to each node, you can still build a network with many more mesh nodes.

Out of interest, what is your application?

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3

Hi @ajudge ,

I’m developing a use case at a shipyard.

Due to the long-distance nature of Wi-Fi HaLow, a single node often has more than 10 physical neighbors.

Of course, some neighbors can be connected via the L3 mesh protocol. However, this will result in lower performance (RTT, PRR) compared to other nodes in the peer link list.

If this is due to chip resources, there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.

However, I hope this situation is recognized and that some improvements can be considered in future product designs.

4

We have some improvements lined up for a future release, increasing this mesh peer limit to 20.

It might be worth considering your topology? Does every device in the network need to be a mesh node?
Many of our customers will configure their infrastructure devices as mesh points and HaLow access points at the same time. This lets the node join the mesh network, but allow hundreds of clients to connect via the standard AP interface.

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5

Hi @ajudge ,

Thank you for the suggestion. I have updated our topology as you recommended, configuring the routers to function as both mesh points and access points simultaneously. This approach successfully resolved the issue we were facing. I appreciate your helpful advice!

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