Openmesh.clewn.org

A meshlocal experiment. Formerly known as Janmesh project which started in 2015.

What is a meshlocal What are the benefits Overlay networks Meshlocal routers requirements and setup Chat Contact: mesh@clewn.org Shop?

Overlay networks

Any meshlocal router as home appliance, as defined in the pages of this site, has always an overlay network stack embeded, namely the well-known Yggdrasil-Network.

What is an overlay network?

It's a virtual network, run througout softare instead of wire or radio waves, that lays on top of a previously established network linking.
This network can run

over a physical local area network, like the 802.11s wifi extending its range from neighbour to neighbour, from meshlocal router to meshlocal router
trought an internet tunnel, laying then on top of the ordinary internet. This is particulary interesting for meshlocals, since it allows to unify distant meshlocals at the global scale

Secure by design

The Yggdrasil overlay network is a trusted network for which any communication is, at the transport layer, end-to-end encrypted:
No one acting as a relay to transmit the data from the sending node to the receiving would never be able to counterfeit, alter, or access the data.
As well, addressing relies on cryptography to work:
Once a particular station keeps its secret key secure, one can always be sure it's truly the "real one" station owning a particular overlay IP address from which or to which a communication is established.

Benefits of embeding Yggdrasil in your home meshlocal router

Once configured, with its internet tunnels and its secure stack set up, the home meshlocal router then provides Yggdrasil connectivity to any other device from your home lan.
The only thing a home LAN machine would need, would be to have Yggdrasil ran on it, with no need to set up any particular Yggdrasil configuration besides generating the cryptographic keys once for all at the initial installation.
Then this LAN machine would automatically autopeer with your meshlocal router for which the additionnal configuration, like Internet tunnels, is already set, and gain access to the global Yggdrasil meshnet as a whole.
The yggdrasil.conf file on this machine, containing its crypographic secret key, can even later be transfered to another machine if needed, so then the same Yggdrasil IP would remain reachable by anyone having an use for it ;
As an example, this LAN machine could run a VoIP/Visio call suite able to work from IP to IP, and its IP would be its sort of a "phone number", that could really remain forever the same whenever a new machine as to be deployed, to replace the old one, at your home.

What is a meshlocal What are the benefits Overlay networks Meshlocal routers requirements and setup Chat Contact: mesh@clewn.org Shop?