qMp (Quick Mesh Project) - Packages

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• Table of contents
• What is qMp?
• Why?
• How?
• Devices
• Features
• Get the firmware
• Use the firmware
• Contributions
• Contact

What is qMp?¶

• It is firmware for embedded network devices based on OpenWRT Linux operating system
• It provides an easy way to set up networks using MESH it doesn't matter your they are either wired or WiFi or a mix of both
• It is a fast and reliable way to extend an Internet uplink to end-users

Why?¶

Two main purposes:

• For quick deployments
  There's no need to think about network topology, all you need to do is to spread the nodes and connect one to internet.
  Use it in any kind of environments like concerts, meetings, demonstrations or in case of a natural disaster.

• For the wireless communities
  If you are new into this all you need to become part of the existing community or to start building one is to download and install the firmware. It won't take you more than the time you need to take a coffee to have your node ready to be put in place.
  But if you are already an old hands at wireless communities here is qMp to let you forget about all those weird network administration tricks that don't last more than a day in your mind and focus on what makes your community grow, that is, the nodes deployment.

How?¶

• Providing a complete autoconfiguration system from the first boot
• Using a set of Layer 3 MESH protocols: BMX6 (main), OLSR6 as backup (depending on the node size)
• Using IPv6 as the main IP protocol with autoconfigured ULA addresses (global is also possible)
• Using IPv4 only for end-user connection (tunneling)
• Providing an easy and intuitive administration web interface (LuCI based)

• Two main modes
  • See this basic example to understand how qMp works in the community mode.
  • And read this short article to understand the differences between roaming and community modes.

Devices¶

Currently the fully supported devices are: Alix, Routerstation, RouterstationPro, Ubiquiti M5 products and several TP-Links.
Some of the devices known to be fully supported by qMp are:

• PCEngines
  • Alix: all models
• Ubiquiti:
  • RouterstationPro (discontinued, unfortunately)
  • M2 and M5: all models
• TP-Links
  • ar7xxx/ar9xxx OpenWRT target (all models should work): TL-WD2543ND, WDR{3500,3600,4300}

qMp is OpenWRT based, so most of the devices supported by OpenWRT are also very likely to be supported by qMp (at least to some extend).
qMp is Free software, so if it doesn't perfectly suits for you all you need to do is to modify it and send us your patches to let us apply them.
Read the next article to see how to add a new device New_device

Features¶

1. mesh: Using a set of mesh protocols to provide automatic networking participation
2. autoconf: A system to auto-configure all settings. So the user does not need to configure anything.
3. qmpinfo: It is a tool written in Lua to get some information about the qMp system.
4. qmpcontrol: It is a tool written as a shell script to manage the qMp system.
5. qMp web: A LUCI (web interface) module to manage and monitor qMp.
6. map: A map tool (named b6m and written in JavaScript and Shell Script) to see the position of all network nodes and how are they connected.
7. internet detect: A tool (named gwck) written in Shell Script which is monitoring if the node is connected to internet, in this case it modifies all needed things to share it with the whole network.

Take a look to the screenshots section: Screenshots

Get the firmware¶

See options on page Get_qMp.

Use the firmware¶

By default the network interfaces from your device are used for the next purposes (if some of them missing, it is just ignored):

• eth0 LAN with DHCP server and IP 172.30.22.1
• eth1 WAN with DHCP client running (you can connect it to internet)
• wlan0 MESH & ADHOC Routing daemons running using IPv6
• wlan1 LAN & AP with DHCP server and IP 172.30.22.1

So you can access it connecting your computer to eth0 or wlan1 and going via web browser to http://172.30.22.1 or http://admin.qmp using default login:

• user: root
• password: 13f

Check the article How to start a community network, and many others in the WiKi

Contributions¶

In the year 2011 the qMp project was partially funded by the PuntCat Foundation (.cat TLD registry).

The company routek.net is helping the project by hiring people for developing new features (for their customers) and write bugfixes.

The main part of this project has been freely contributed by a bunch of networking enthusiast volunteers.

You can also help us by crowdfunding our project, we accept BitCoins:

1qMp9BWTM1Soth2NGgxsTBqvXX5mpPiPy

Thank you!

Contact¶

• e-mail: info_at_qmp.cat
• Users mailing list: https://mail.qmp.cat/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qmp-users
• Developers mailing list: https://mail.qmp.cat/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qmp-dev
• Enterprise: http://routek.net

             
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                 quick MESH project