Installation
Before you can install the afrimesh-dashboard package you will need to add the Afrimesh package archive & signing keys to the system.
To do this, please open up a Terminal and run:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:afrimesh/ppa
On older versions of Ubuntu you may need to run this instead:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 50CFBA3E
sudo sh -c "echo deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/afrimesh/ppa/ubuntu hardy main >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
sudo apt-get update
You should only ever have to do this once to access all present and future Afrimesh releases from your machine.
Finally, you can install the afrimesh-dashboard package by running:
sudo apt-get install afrimesh-dashboard
Alternatively, the afrimesh-dashboard package will now also be available for installation from Synaptic Package Manager:
That's it!
TODO
cd /usr/ports/net-mgmt/afrimesh-dashboard
make install clean
The latest stable version of the Afrimesh sources can always be obtained from: http://code.google.com/p/afrimesh/downloads/list
make all
make install
Once you have installed the afrimesh dashboard package you can access the web interface by opening a browser and going to:
http://<your machine's address>/afrimesh/
Assuming everything went according to plan you should now see the Network Map display:
==================== IMPORTANT ====================
You will see that all the dashboard service addresses are set to
`demo.afrimesh.org` by default.
This is so that you can verify that the afrimesh-dashboard
installation was successful even if your own network is not yet
properly configured.
You HAVE to set these addresses to the appropriate values for your
network in order for the dashboard to function on your network.
By default a fresh installation of afrimesh-dashboard is configured
to manage MY network and not yours!!! :-)
==================== IMPORTANT ====================
To configure the Afrimesh Dashboard for your network you need to open the Utility->Settings menu:
Let's go through each setting individually:
The Visualization Server is responsible for tracking how the nodes in your mesh network connect to one another.
All mesh nodes periodically connect to the Visualization Server and update it with information about their neighbors.
It is recommended that you install the Visualization Server for your network on the server or mesh node which acts as the mesh gateway although, in practice, any system reachable from the mesh network can be used.
TODO - how to install vis on each of OpenWRT, FreeBSD, Ubuntu
The Accounting Server is responsible for tracking the amount of data downloaded from the Internet by each mesh node.
You must install it on the server or mesh node acting as the Internet Gateway. Installing it elsewhere will provide misleading data!
Afrimesh currently supports only the pmacct service for the collection of traffic data.
It should have been installed by default on your dashboard server when you installed the afrimesh-dashboard package.
If your dashboard server is on the same machine as your gateway you can simply set this field to the address of your dashboard server.
TODO - manual installation & configuration of pmacct
The pmacct packages in OpenWRT have a nasty bug that requires the mysql libraries be installed on the router (!)
As a temporary workaround, I've compiled a fixed version from the
latest 0.12.0 pmacct sources. You can install it by adding the
following line to the top of your routers /etc/opkg.conf file:
src packages http://downloads.afrimesh.org/stable/atheros/packages
and running:
opkg update
opkg install afrimesh-pmacctd afrimesh-pmacct-client
Set this to the address of your internet router.
Afrimesh uses a protocol called SNMP to monitor your internet router.
Usually the default setting of public will work just fine.
In the event that it doesn't, your ISP will know what you should set it to.
Set this to the correct network interface on your Internet router. If you don't know, the easiest is to try each option and check if Network->Health is displaying the correct traffic graph for your Internet connection.
These settings are in KiloBitsPerSecond. Set them to the capacity of your Internet connection.
TODO - how to install & ConfigureFreeRadius
You can leave this on the default setting if you have an Internet Connection.
If you do not have an Internet Connection on your mesh you will need to set up a Map Server on your local network and set this field to the address of that server.
Instructions for doing this can be found TODO.
You can set the location of your dashboard server using either the map display or by manually entering your coordinates into the boxes provided.
The map can be zoomed using the controls, dragged by clicking anywhere on it with your mouse and the marker can be moved by clicking on it and dragging it.
You can ignore the instructions below and skip straight to the configuration section if you are running Mesh Potato hardware as they are already pre-installed to work with the Afrimesh Dashboard out of the box.
TODO
TODO
TODO
Assuming that Network & Wireless settings are correctly configured for your particular network, the only configuration required consists of setting the B.A.T.M.A.N. Vis Server to the same value you used in the Dashboard configuration above.