Hi,
On 13/09/2025 12:53, [email protected] wrote:
Hi,
I’m researching whether the following use case can be implemented with
B.A.T.M.A.N., and I’d appreciate any guidance on how to achieve it.
Use case:
- A Wi-Fi mesh network consisting of multiple OpenWRT devices.
- Each device is mobile, meaning nodes can join or leave the mesh at any time.
"mobile" normally implies that a node does not have a fixed position,
but it would rather move (i.e. getting closer/farther to/from other
nodes). Is that also the case?
However, both scenarios (what you described and what I described) are
supported: batman-adv is built to deal with dynamic networks of any
sort. (Just keep in mind some scenarios may be slower to converge)
- Any node may have its own internet connection and if so, share it with the
mesh by acting as a gateway (gw_mode=Gateway).
- Each node should automatically choose the best available internet
route—either through the mesh (as a gw_mode=Client) or via its own internet
access.
When a node is configured as gateway (gw-mode=server) the assumption is
that it is also the best GW for itself, hence DHCP requests reaching
this node (i.e. from stations) will stay local and won't go out in the mesh.
If you decide that it is not a good GW anymore, some external logic must
kick in and switch gw_mode from server to client.
At this point DHCP requests will be sent to the "best" GW in the mesh.
My main concern is whether a node can simultaneously act as both a gateway and
a client. Is this possible, and if so, how can it be configured?
Given what I said above, I hope you understand that batman-adv expects
each node to be either gateway or client at any given time.
If you want to dynamically switch between gateway and client, then you
must have some extra logic (external to batman-adv) that takes care of
the switch.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers,
--
Antonio Quartulli
