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LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware
- 24gttghh 8y agoCool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0]https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/ https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/
- wyldfire 8y agoEh? "as the antennas"? That's not what that schematic shows, is it? AFAICT there's a PCIe connection to the NIC (Atheros QCA9582), which, as an 802.11 NIC, naturally has antennas.
- jstanley 8y agoIt looks like the librerouter.org ssl certificate expired 15 minutes ago.
- LinuxBender 8y agoCorrect. [1] Hopefully someone will email them. [1] - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=librerouter.org&latest https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=librerouter.o...
- vetrom 8y agoThey goofed their letsencrypt renew cron job.
- __d 8y agoI sent them a message via their Contact page form.
- subway 8y agoI think that's more or less a Qualcomm reference design, and an old one at that. It's a little surprising that they went with a 2013 MIPS based SoC instead of ARM. The PCIe wireless cards are also a bit disappointing - QCA9582, which only does 802.11n. In theory, if the PCIe cards are really socketed, you could swap in a faster wireless card, but I suspect that the SoC wouldn't keep up.
- wtallis 8y agoThey're probably using 802.11n WiFi because all 802.11ac NICs require proprietary firmware, but Qualcomm-Atheros 802.11n hardware doesn't, and can be used just with fully open-source drivers.
- walrus01 8y agoI am a big believer these days in letting radios be radios - if you want a high capacity, relatively low cost 5.x GHz band PTP link, something like two ubnt AF5XHD radios and a pair of RF Elements Ultrahorn antennas. Put the routing intelligence and anything that requires a good amount of CPU and RAM in something dedicated to that purpose at each site, such as a Mikrotik RB3011 or RB4011 ($199). https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_rm https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_rm Or a home-made hacked together x86-64 system running VyOS or FRR, if you want, which can be assembled for zero dollars in many cases. Or zero dollars plus the cost of a few Intel 1000BaseT NICs.
- Fnoord 8y agoI was fine with MIPS (which Ubiquity uses as well) until I found out that Linux/MIPS doesn't support ASLR/DEP. [1] [1] https://cyber-itl.org/assets/papers/2018/Linux_MIPS_missing_foundations.pdf https://cyber-itl.org/assets/papers/2018/Linux_MIPS_missing_...
- walrus01 8y agoVery broadly, in the same category as these, which is a single board computer with multiple minipci slots into which you can install 802.11n or 802.11ac based radio interface cards. Typically with 50 ohm coaxial u.fl connectors to coax pigtails going to external antennas. https://mikrotik.com/product/RB435G https://mikrotik.com/product/RB435G https://mikrotik.com/product/RB433AH https://mikrotik.com/product/RB433AH https://mikrotik.com/product/RB493G https://mikrotik.com/product/RB493G
- akerro 8y agoSlightly different purpose, but it's a reminder that Omnia Turris exists: https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ 100% Open hardware, comes with OpenWRT and it is easy to modify https://forum.turris.cz/t/high-performance-configuration-update/1534 https://forum.turris.cz/t/high-performance-configuration-upd... https://forum.turris.cz/t/omnia-on-steroids-project-your-opinion-and-expertise-is-welcomed/5712 https://forum.turris.cz/t/omnia-on-steroids-project-your-opi...
- ce4 8y agoAnd funnily its from cznic while the op's router is from apnic.
- xuande 8y agoActually it's not apnic's, the blog is just writing about it. These are the people working on it: https://librerouter.org/team https://librerouter.org/team
- ce4 8y agoThanks, failed to notice that. Will need to come back later to their site though: "librerouter.org uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate expired on 19. Dezember 2018, 18:11:42 GMT+1."
- iagovar 8y agoDid you tried it, is it worth it?
- akerro 8y agoI've been using it for almost 3 years at home with domoticz, NAS, OpenVPN gateway for all clients at home, QoS and bandwidth splitter.
- voltagex_ 8y agoI jumped from a Turris Omnia to Unifi kit after the Turris broke during an update (sorry, I need my stuff to work all the time). Funnily enough I miss it, but the decision to use knot as the resolver is very, very strange. The Omnia is based on the Espressobin, which is also worth looking at.
- walrus01 8y agoFrom a WISP point to multipoint radio perspective, pure mesh is a really bad idea (due to half duplex medium and CSMA hell). I admire the internet research work that APNIC does but it looks to me like they're re-inventing the wheel here, versus mature and stable, relatively low cost commercial 5 GHz band point to multipoint radio platforms like the Ubiquiti Rocket5AC gen2 and its associated CPEs, Cambium PMP450/PMP450i, ePMP series, and the various 802.11n and 802.11ac based Mikrotik solutions for point-to-multipoint 802.11 based last mile. Or Mimosa's 802.11ac based 4x4 MIMO platforms. If you want to have a community WISP that operates with purely open source software, and are willing to forgo running an OS you can mess with on the radio itself, there's nothing stopping you from doing all of your network management and backend operational software on purely GPL, BSD and Apache licensed software. There are significant performance advantages to using a 'mature' commercial WISP PTMP radio platform, one example of which would be: 1) ubnt rocket 5ac gen2 radios 2) RF elements 30, 60 and 90 degree horn antennas 3) ubnt powerbeam AC ISO gen2 CPE radios. The PDF spec sheet for this apnic thing shows that it's running on a 7-year-old 802.11n based chipset, functionally equivalent to 802.11n cards I could buy for Mikrotik routerboards in the year 2011, best possible modulation is 64QAM 5/6, while the current generation of PTMP radios mentioned above are all capable of 256QAM (much better bps/Hz in a given TDMA channel size like 20 or 40 MHz) and are 802.11ac or 802.11ac wave2 based. One of the problems with mesh is that you end up with antennas that have very, very spread out RF patterns, because every node needs to talk to multiple neighbors. It ends up crapping all over the 5 GHz noise floor in a given area, and eventually becomes a CSMA nightmare. Whereas if you have a system with focused, shielded sector antennas for AP sites (or horns), and directional parabolic dishes for client antennas, you can scale to a much greater degree. Dedicated purpose WISP PTMP AP radios like the Mimosa also adapt 802.11ac chipsets to the unique timing, timeslicing and TDMA contention problems of having many individual clients, with different RSL levels and modulations, at varying distances located many kilometres away from an AP site. Using an off the shelf 802.11n chipset will have significant performance issues. All major PTMP AP radios nowadays have a built in GPS receiver for the AP radio, and 'slave' the CPE radios to them to coordinate timing. This greatly increased the aggregate throughput (in Mbps) and capacity of a single AP radio and sector antenna. This means that you cannot connect a generic 802.11n or 802.11ac client such as a laptop or tablet to a ubnt airmax or mimosa gps-synced radio system, and that's an intentional part of the design. If you want a mesh for resiliency, a common topology is to connect various AP sites together for backhaul purposes by dedicated point-to-point links (again with tight RF pattern parabolic dishes, or something like the rf elements ultrahorn, or licensed band radios), put a router at each POP, and form a "mesh" at layer 3 with common OSPF and BGP network topologies in a private AS.
- rwj 8y agoPerhaps I missed it, but did anyone see the range for these routers?
- AnnoyingSwede 8y agoFeel free to correct me, but from memory they would be forced to stay within the <100mw range to comply with FCC in most parts of the world but with a directional antenna in both directions you can achive kms as long as no obsticles are presented.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoAre you missing a 0? I thought the FCC limited it to less than 1000mW.
- xellisx 8y agohttps://www.air802.com/fcc-rules-and-regulations.html https://www.air802.com/fcc-rules-and-regulations.html
- nicoechaniz 8y agoHi, NicoEchániz, from the LibreRouter team here. The routers have been tested to work over 3Km links in existing mesh network deployments with very good performance. Depending on the antennas you use range can be much more, but the LibreRouter is specifically designed for a Mesh setup where links tend to be < 3Km.
- ausjke 8y agolibremesh supports a few models: https://libremesh.org/docs/en_quick_starting_guide.html https://libremesh.org/docs/en_quick_starting_guide.html ubnt's devices are not that expensive and may be the easy way out, unless you really want to do all the firmware testing, equipment in a water-proof enclosure etc. Plus this project is in lack of a web GUI to manage the nodes, you have to use CLI to do that, might be hard to find qualified IT workers in remote areas. I also agree that point-to-point, or point-to-multipoint might be a better, simpler and more robust way to service the remote areas via wifi.
- thecosas 8y agoLooks like their security certificate expired a few days ago.
- nicoechaniz 8y agothanks for noticing. will fix
- simplymath 8y agoI'm sure the 20,000 network users around the world tried "the easy way" before investing considerable time and resources into developing "the better way."
- simplymath 8y agolibremap.net
- nicoechaniz 8y agoregular LibreMesh provides luci web admin interface. The LibreRouter version of LibreMesh uses a simple UI[1] that has been tested in existing community networks managed by non-tech people. The LiMe App provides a simple view of the node, neighbors and mesh status, it helps with antenna alignment, mapping and general diagnosis. This system will be coupled with the remote support platform currently in development under the LibreRouter Phase 2 project funded by Internet Society. [1] https://github.com/libremesh/lime-app https://github.com/libremesh/lime-app
- stamps 8y agoPFsense on a PC Engines APU is a good alternative for now if anyone is looking for something today.
- nicoechaniz 8y agoThe purpose of the LibreRouter is to bring to the hardware side what we have accomplished on the software side with LibreMesh. AlterMundi and other partner organizations help build technologies for "geek free" community networks. General purpose hardware can always be adapted if you have the skills and the money to spend on your project. We work from the global south with global south realities in mind. A LibreRouter node, with outdoor casing, three sector antennas, GPS module, pigtails, etc. will cost around $150 and will be ready to deploy by non-expert users following simple instructions.
- simplymath 8y ago<3
- stamps 8y agoOh I didn't mean that as a jab to the work being done. More so to start a discussion on what can be done in the home today instead of a completely proprietary router. I will be keeping my eye on this project for WWAN or site to site applications. Thank you for the good work.
- dustfinger 8y agoI bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago. The firmware is well maintained [3]. The IRC support has been excellent when needed. It is by no means a high end router, but I did not purchase it with that expectation to begin with. Overall, I have been super happy with it. [1]: https://librecmc.org/ https://librecmc.org/ [2]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/librecmc-free-software-wireless-n-broadband-router-gnu-linux https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/librecmc-free-softwar... [3]: https://gogs.librecmc.org/libreCMC/libreCMC/releases https://gogs.librecmc.org/libreCMC/libreCMC/releases
- jseliger 8y agoI bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago This looks very cool, but do they sell a router with everything installed and ready to go? I don't see a "buy it now" button on their page. I suspect there are a lot of people like me who are happy to buy this stuff but would like to have it ready to go, out of the box.
- subway 8y agohttps://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireless-n-mini-vpn-router-tpe-r1100 https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireles... Seems the search string you were looking for is "buy think penguin router"...
- dustfinger 8y agoHi jseliger, The libreCMC router from Think Penguin did come ready to go out of the box. Of course I made a few tweaks. At the very least you will want to set a good passphrase. Unfortunately I don't think the model that I purchased is still being sold. Think Penguin is now selling a newer model (Wireless-N Mini VPN Router (TPE-R1100)) with preconfigured vpn tunneling that is FSF certified [1]. Though I have not used that particular model, it is running the same libreCMC firmware :-). You can read more about their VPN service here [2], but I can't comment on it since I have never used it. [1]:https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireless-n-mini-vpn-router-tpe-r1100 https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireles... [2]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguinvpn-subscription-1-6-and-12-month-options https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguinvpn-subscripti...
- zokier 8y agoAth9k is not going to win any performance awards anymore, but it is still pretty rock solid chipset and more importantly has afaik the very best foss drivers. Bit odd that they are basing their firmware on OpenWrt 15.05, which is over three years old now. I guess flashing in 18.xx shouldn't be that hard
- nicoechaniz 8y agohi NicoEchániz here, project coordinator for the LibreRouter. The current development version of LibreMesh[1], the LibreRouter firmware, is based on OpenWRT 18.06.1. The soon to come first batch of production LibreRouter units will come with this version pre-installed. [1] https://github.com/libremesh/lime-packages.git https://github.com/libremesh/lime-packages.git
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoThese are cool and all, but here's a naive question. Where do these community networks connect to the internet at large? Wouldn't this violate some sort of ToS from the provider?
- dsr_ 8y agoDepends on who you're buying from. In general, home/consumer usage is cheaper, less reliable, and comes with those restrictions compared to a business use.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoSo, basically some small, rural township would buy the access then share or several individuals would pool their funds and do it?
- __d 8y agoYes. Either fibre or wireless link(s) to an upstream provider. Non-residential connections don't have the same sort of ToS that residential broadband does. The cost of those links (or link) is then shared by the community wireless organization. So typically, subscribers pay a small monthly fee to join the mesh, which covers the cost of Internet connectivity and any other shared resources in the community network (ie. rooftop space for a central node, etc).
- nicoechaniz 8y agohi NicoEchániz here, project coordinator for the LibreRouter. There are many different realities regarding the connectivity from a community network to the rest of the Internet. In the case of AlterMundi - the organization steering LibreRouter - , the communities that are connected in our region in Argentina are registered as a national non-profit operator, we have our own ASN and public IP ranges and we do BGP peering with other networks in the region. So... no ToS violations.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
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- nicoechaniz 8y agoProduction is about to start. Phase II is around the corner. Contact us through the contact form at http://librerouter.org/contact http://librerouter.org/contact if you wish to keep up to date with the project.
- nimbius 8y agocheck out ALIX routers based on AMD APU. I have a few running arch doing double-duty as wired/wireless routers and fileservers: https://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm https://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm
- deytempo 8y agoSo is this still susceptible to throw hammer attacks?