Open-Mesh » batman-adv

Hi,

I'm using batman-adv on OpenWrt 19.07-rc.2 on a TP-Link Archer C7 v2 device. First things first, I cannot use wpad-mesh to make a 802.1s device for batman-adv because i need some SSIDs hosted with EAP and that forces me to select the openwrt package "wpad". This one has no 802.1s encrypted mesh support.

I've first tried to add an extra SSID to my radio0 in IBSS ad-hoc mode.
Diagram:

Device A (AP SSID1, AP SSID2, IBSS SSID for batman-adv) <=> Device B (IBSS SSID for batman-adv)

This one worked but brought up a different problem not relevant for here ( see https://forum.openwrt.org/t/archer-c7-v2-kernel-warn-comm-wpa-supplicant-not-tainted-4-14-156/51664 ).

So I decided to switch to AP and STA combination for batman-adv.
Diagram:

Device A (AP SSID1, AP SSID2, AP SSID3 for batman-adv) <=> Device B (STA ASSOC to AP SSID3 for batman-adv)

The batman-adv "tunnel" comes up fine and the above mentioned kernel.warn's (from IBSS mode) disappear. All fine.

MY PROBLEM:

• When device A disconnects WiFi clients, e.g. during a reboot, the batman-adv tunnel does NOT come up again by itself. batctl on device B shows that no originator is available anymore. The device B to device A "STA-to-AP" association comes up well after a disconnect.

MANUAL FIX:

• /etc/init.d/network restart
• Executed on device B (e.g. from cron if "batctl o" outputs no originators are there)
• heals the problem immediately and the batman-adv tunnel works again (verified by pinging)

EXPECTATION:

• If batman-adv is running on a STA interface, e.g. wlan0-3 for my setup, it should automatically do its "internal restart of things" after a STA disconnect and reassociation with the AP without the need for an extra cron job.

Thank you for your great work.

I hope this could be fixed or improved in future versions.

Kind regards
Catfriend1