After many hours playing with different versions of freifunk firmware, I am close to giving up and finding something else.
After a reassuring conversation with Karel from the Meraka Institute in South Africa at lunchtime, I'm glad that I'm not the only one having issues. The Freifunk firmware is open source and designed for building scalable, resilient and very low cost mesh networks. Linknet and the Meraka institute have been using it for several years now but have recently run into a problem with bandwidth. That's why I'm here.
Bandwidth is expensive in the middle of Zambia and costs thousands of dollars a month. Because of the shear number of users that need to use the connection in Macha, there are times when their system slows to a halt. One or two users can take the whole system down because it's totally open.
The solution was to install the PolkaSpots Management System that can control individuals with SLA's and quarantine users if they use too much. The problem is, the freifunk mesh software was designed as a community platform and no thought has been given to authenticating users. Because of this, client devices are effectively hidden in the mesh and our system (and any other authentication system) needs to see either ip addresses and / or mac addresses.
After a long Saturday, we have to quickly sort an alternative to Freifunk or get their software fixed.
Onto dinner with some new friends - a welcome change to the restaurant having eaten there twice a day for three days. I even got escorted home by someone on a motor bike as I keep getting lost in the bush. Not good. It was exciting zipping through the trees in the pitch black following only the dim red glow from his bike.
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