Pranav Jerry
61a96ea3b3
Made messages printed in Makefile more understandable. Removed full path of naxalnet from the systemd service. Now you can start naxalnet even if it is installed in /usr/local/bin, if systemd allows (I have not tested it). Many comments were made to respect the 80 chars per line rule. And, of course, added some political commentary to insult the global superpower (superpower in terms of money, military and something else I forgot). And removed MANIFEST.in, which probably haven't changed anything. |
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naxalnet | ||
systemd-networkd | ||
.gitignore | ||
CHANGELOG.md | ||
HACKING.md | ||
LICENSE | ||
Makefile | ||
naxalnet.conf.example | ||
naxalnet.service | ||
pyproject.toml | ||
README.md | ||
setup.cfg | ||
setup.py |
naxalnet
naxalnet is a program to create a wireless mesh network for communicating with each other. It can be useful during an internet shutdown, or to join online classes with a group of laptops. It uses B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced, an implementation of the B.A.T.M.A.N. routing protocol to communicate with peers. The name naxal comes from Naxalbari, a village in Darjeeling, West Bengal.
WARNING: This program uses an unencrypted network. This means you do not get any more privacy or security than with an open WiFi network.
Requirements
- systemd-networkd v248 or more
- Linux kernel with batman-adv module
- iwd for controlling the WiFi adapter
- python3
- python3-setuptools, for building and installing naxalnet
- python-systemd, for logging to systemd journal
- dasbus, for communicating with iwd
- two or more machines with a WiFi adapter having ibss support, called nodes or peers
- batctl (optional, for debugging)
- python3-pip (for installing dasbus on Debian-based distributions)
Installing
This program is available in the AUR for Arch users. Building manually for other distributions may not always work.
Arch Linux
Install naxalnet (or naxalnet-git for the development version) from the AUR with your favourite helper:
yay -S naxalnet
Optionally, setup systemd-resolved for DNS if any of the nodes have internet access. Start naxalnet when you need it.
Ubuntu
naxalnet is not packaged for Ubuntu, so you will have to build and install it manually. Currently, only the unreleased 21.10 comes with the required version of systemd. Therefore, naxalnet won't work on Ubuntu 21.04 or older.
Install the requirements from the Ubuntu repositories:
# batctl is optional
sudo apt install python3-pip python3-systemd iwd batctl build-essential
# Now, install dasbus with pip
sudo pip3 install dasbus
Now follow the instructions in the manual installation section
Fedora
naxalnet is not packaged for Fedora, so it should be installed manually. naxalnet requires atleast systemd v248 which is only available on Fedora 34 and above. Install the dependencies:
# systemd-resolved may be required for rawhide
sudo dnf install systemd-networkd iwd python3-dasbus python3-setuptools python3-systemd
Now head over to the next section to install naxalnet.
Manually
Install the requirements.
Clone the naxalnet repo and cd into it.
git clone https://git.disroot.org/pranav/naxalnet.git
cd naxalnet
Now, build and install naxalnet:
make
sudo make install
After installing, reload systemd so that it detects the new service files:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
To upgrade, clean the build files, update the repo and reinstall:
make clean
git pull
make
sudo make uninstall install
This will keep the configuration files.
How to use
You need more than one machine running naxalnet for the connection to work.
Start naxalnet
Though naxalnet can run from the command line, it was designed to be run as a systemd service. To start naxalnet, do the command on all the nodes:
sudo systemctl start naxalnet.service
This will start a mesh network and connect to all nodes. To test if it
works, run sudo batctl n -w
and check for nodes. If there are any nodes,
your network is up. Press Ctrl+C to stop batctl
.
Getting internet access
Connect an ethernet cable from a router to any of the nodes. Now restart
naxalnet on the node to set gateway_mode
to server
. Other nodes will
take a minute or more to renew DHCP. You can optionally do this manually
if you don't want the delay. To do this, type
sudo networkctl renew bridge0
on all nodes.
Tethering via WiFi AP
If there are two adapters in a peer, naxalnet will start a WiFi ap (also called WiFi hotspot) on one of them.
Connect two WiFi adapters on a node.
Now an AP will be started on one of the adapters.
Type naxalnet --print-wifi
to get the WiFi SSID and password.
If you had set up internet access on one of the nodes, internet can be accessed from the AP.
Running at boot
To run naxalnet at boot, enable the service on all the nodes:
sudo systemctl enable naxalnet.service
Now naxalnet will start a mesh on every boot.
If you have NetworkManager enabled, which is the default in Ubuntu and Fedora, it should be disabled:
sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager.service
To stop running at boot, you should disable naxalnet.service
:
sudo systemctl disable naxalnet.service
If you had disabled NetworkManager
before, enable it:
sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
Stopping the service
sudo systemctl stop naxalnet iwd systemd-networkd systemd-resolved
If your distribution uses NetworkManager, starting naxalnet.service
will have stopped it. Start NetworkManager again:
sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service
Configuration
naxalnet comes with a sample configuration file
/etc/naxalnet/naxalnet.conf.example
. To change how the program
behaves, copy it to /etc/naxalnet/naxalnet.conf and edit it:
sudo cp /etc/naxalnet/naxalnet.conf{.example,}
# Now edit the file with your favourite editor as root
gedit admin:/etc/naxalnet/naxalnet.conf
Also, you can change its behaviour every time you run it using arguments:
naxalnet --help
How it works
There are three modes commonly supported by WiFi adapters - ap
(WiFi
hotspot), station
(for joining WiFi networks) and ad-hoc
(or ibss, for
decentralised networks). There are other modes supported by some WiFi
adapters too, like p2p
(WiFi direct), but this program doesn't use them.
naxalnet uses two modes - ad-hoc
and ap
, for connecting to the
mesh. naxalnet uses iwd to start an ad-hoc
network and configures
systemd-networkd to setup a BATMAN Advanced network.
If there are two WiFi adapters connected to the machine,
naxalnet starts an ad-hoc on one of them and an ap on the other.
You can use the ap for connecting mobile phones and other devices
to the mesh network.
Read the code and the documentation in the code to learn the details. See the directory systemd-networkd to see how systemd-networkd configures the network.
Use cases
Online class
naxalnet can be used to share connections to join online classes. You need at least one device with internet access.
Internet shutdown
You can communicate with neighbouring devices running naxalnet, using services like IPFS, Jami, Secure Scuttlebutt and others which can work on an intranet. They should be installed on your machine before your friendly democratic government announces an internet shutdown, since you cannot download and install them during a shutdown. When a shutdown occurs, enable naxalnet.
Uninstalling
If you installed naxalnet manually, use make uninstall to remove naxalnet and its data files. This requires python pip to be installed.
# Uninstall the program, keeping the config files
sudo make uninstall
# Or, to uninstall and remove config files
sudo make purge
Contributing or reporting bugs
See HACKING.md
Similar projects
Many projects make setting up B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced mesh networks with WiFi routers easier. They are easier to setup and are more configurable. But naxalnet is different from them. It simplifies setting up mesh networks with laptops or computers, and was not made to work with routers.
The following projects does something similar to naxalnet, but requires special devices or routers to work. If you live in an area where the materials are easily available, consider using them instead of naxalnet.
- LibreMesh: framework for OpenWrt-based firmwares
- disaster.radio: solar-powered communications network
License
naxalnet is free/libre/swatantra and open source software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, eitherversion 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
See LICENSE for the complete version of the license.