[MLB-WIRELESS] Routing protocols

[mw at freenet.net.au]

Hi Kim,

Thanks for the reply! :) 

> I can't speak for MelbWireless, as I'm not really a member, 
> but as a Air-Stream member, we use BGP to manage the routes 
> in our WAN.

OK, I'll bite.... What is "air-stream"?

> We have a map which shows us which areas are part of which 
> network subnets and what the Autonomous System numbers are.

That's cool - what drives that map?  You say 'AS numberS' (plural) - there
are more than one?  Do you use assigned numbers or do you just "make 'em
up"?

> You could do something similar in Melbourne, but I am not 
> sure who the best people are for networking or BGP =)

I've worked with BGP plenty before - I'm intending to do it myself if I can
find the right folks to work *with*! ;-)

> Anyhow, we used to use OSPF until we hit lots of problems 
> with broadcast and multicast packets. ie lots of access 
> points do not retransmit them, and there for OSPF didn't work 
> for us using that kit... which is why we moved to BGP.

That doesn't surprise me.  Ruting protocols tend to follow the general
"horses for courses" rule.  They work well for a particular application,
badly for others.  I reckon that OSPF is good for networks that can be
described as a logical whole, but when there are obvious units or clusters,
then BGP makes better sense.

> Anyhow, if OSPF works with your kit, you could have local 
> networks that use OSPF and connect up those smaller networks 
> with BGP. You might be able to use BGP over tunnels the way 
> we do to link up a couple of isolated parts of the network =)

That would seem to be the right way to do it - for sure.

> The other protocol you could use in the mean time is OLSR. 
> Its focused at adhoc mesh networks, but its suitable on a 
> small to medium scale.
> Later if you had a few of these networks you could link them 
> together with BGP...

OK thanks - I'll look into that one.

> ftp://ftp.adelaide.edu.au/pub/users/khawti01/CommunityWirelessMiniConf
> 
> Theres more info there if you are up for it =) If you are 
> interested maybe we could do some thing at LCA09?

Sure!  What is LCA08?

Cheers.