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<p>The list has been entirely too quiet of late, what with summer
vacations and conferences.<br>
</p>
<p>On behalf of Dave Taht, who is busy conferencing today, I'm very
happy to announce the beta test of CeroWrt, which is a OpenWRT
build specifically for the Netgear WNDR3700v2. While it is a
beginning in debloating a home router, it's also an attempt to put
together a home router that we'd actually like to use ourselves,
with IPv6 and full DNS and DNSSEC support (see below for details).<br>
</p>
<p>Note that we'd really appreciate people helping performance
testing, both relative to stock commercial firmware for the
WNDR3700v2, and testing latency under load; netperf along with
many other performance tools are included with CeroWrt. Helping
with automating such testing would be a way people could be a big
help. While we think it should outperform the what's out there,
it's entirely possible some stupid bug or knob twist could cause
unintended performance problems; it would be unfortunate to
declare a first release of CeroWrt and find it worked worse than
commercial firmware. Bug 216<big> <big><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 72, 72);
font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight:
normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal;
orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a
href="http://www.bufferbloat.net/issues/216">http://www.bufferbloat.net/issues/216</a>
is a good object lesson; far from all problems people see in
their 802.11 environment are due to bufferbloat: device
drivers can also be a major issue, with excessive retry,
particularly in the face of 802.11n aggregation becoming a
serious problem. It is also an object lesson as to why a
fully open platform is the only way to make progress on this
problem; disentangling bloat from other problems becomes a
Gordian knot in a system that is closed.<br>
</span></big></big></p>
<p><big><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 72,
72); font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;
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text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255,
255);"></span></big></p>
<p><big><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 72,
72); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2;
text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none;
-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width:
0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">
Dave and Jim<br>
<br>
</span></big></p>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 72, 72);
font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style:
normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing:
normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></span><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 72, 72);
font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style:
normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing:
normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect:
none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width:
0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br>
<br>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif;
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border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid;
border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); color: rgb(68, 68, 68);
"><img class="gravatar" alt="" title=""
src="cid:part1.01080801.05060000@freedesktop.org"
style="vertical-align: top; padding-top: 3px; padding-right:
3px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 3px; border-top-style:
solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid;
border-left-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px;
border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px;
border-left-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(213, 213, 213);
border-right-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-bottom-color:
rgb(213, 213, 213); border-left-color: rgb(213, 213, 213);
background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial;
background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: -2px;
margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: -4px; margin-left: 0px;
background-position: initial initial; background-repeat:
initial initial; " height="24" width="24">CeroWrt RC5 is
suitable for beta testing</h2>
<p><em>After a week of testing in the lab, we are delighted to
report that the last major bugs (#216 and #195) appear to be
stomped in Cerowrt 1.0. While our testing continues, we
welcome other testers to download the firmware and give the
router a try!</em></p>
<p><br>
<span class="author"><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><span
class="Apple-converted-space"></span><span
class="Apple-converted-space"></span></span></p>
<div class="wiki">
<h1 id="About-CeroWrt" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',
Verdana, sans-serif; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 2px;
padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-left: 0px;
font-size: 20px; border-bottom-width: 1px;
border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187,
187); color: rgb(68, 68, 68); ">About CeroWrt</h1>
<p>CeroWrt is a project to resolve endemic problems in home
networking today, and to push the state of the art of edge
networks and routers forward. Projects include tighter
integration with DNSSEC, wireless mesh networking (Wisp6),
measurements of networking and censorship issues (BISMark),
among others, notably reducing bufferbloat in both the wired
and wireless components of the stack.</p>
<h1 id="CeroWrts-Goals" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',
Verdana, sans-serif; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;
margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 2px;
padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-left: 0px;
font-size: 20px; border-bottom-width: 1px;
border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187,
187); color: rgb(68, 68, 68); ">CeroWrt's Goals</h1>
<p>CeroWrt is a build of the OpenWrt routing platform intended
for use by individuals, network engineers, researchers,
teachers, and students interested in advancing the state of
the art on the Internet, and in particular, those
investigating the problems of latency under load, bufferbloat,
wireless-n, and the inter-relationships between various TCP
& QoS algorithms.</p>
<p>CeroWrt breaks with home router conventions in several ways.
CeroWrt comes with a high performance integral web server with
which you can establish local web services and provide web
content and services 24x7.</p>
<p>First class name services become a necessity rather than a
"nice to have" with IPv6 deployment. Manual configuration of
name services with IPv4 and IPv6 literal addresses is no
longer feasible by most people, if indeed it ever was. Toward
the goal of "plug and play" home environment able to publish
IPv6 addresses into the global Internet name space without
manual configuration, CeroWrt includes the Bind name server.
Security in the home environment is also a goal, ergo
CeroWrt's support for DNSSEC using ISC Bind in a chrooted
jail.</p>
<p>A core goal for CeroWrt is to provide a well understood
platform, where contributors can perform tests with confidence
that their results can be duplicated by others.</p>
<p>CeroWrt is the base on which other specialised builds may be
built in the future. The default build is too big (~9MB) to be
compatible with more commonly available routers.</p>
<p>There are other features all intended to help make insight
into networking problems easier. In particular, bufferbloat,
wherever we could find it, has been reduced, but not yet
eliminated entirely; that requires the research in AQM and
buffer management for which CeroWrt is intended.</p>
<h1 id="Interesting-features-of-this-release"
style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif;
margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;
margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 10px;
padding-bottom: 1px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 20px;
border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid;
border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); color: rgb(68, 68,
68); ">Interesting features of this release:</h1>
<p>Ocean City Release includes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Extensive debloating</li>
<li>ISC Bind 9 with DNSSEC, running in a chroot jail</li>
<li>Numerous debugging and diagnostic tools</li>
<li>ECN is enabled</li>
<li>Multiple TCP algorithms (Cubic, Bic, Westwood+, Vegas)</li>
<li>Multiple traffic shapers (now including DRR and SFB)</li>
<li>Simulations are possible of packet loss and delay by using
NETEM</li>
<li>Native, 6to4, and 6in4 IPv6 support</li>
<li>Mesh routing</li>
<li>The polipo web proxy</li>
<li>Local lighttpd Web Server</li>
<li>Rsync</li>
<li>Bridging different radios and ethernet has become very
problematic, particularly in the face of multicast traffic
and radically different wireless bandwidth. CeroWrt routes
rather than bridges.</li>
<li>Many additional packages are not installed by default, but
are available in the CeroWrt package repository.</li>
</ul>
<p>While we have tried very hard to produce a usable web
interface for the normal use of CeroWrt as your primary
Internet router (and do desire you use it as such and give us
feedback!), some things, such as configuration of the web
proxy, or alternate TCP algorithms can require non-GUI editing
via SSH.</p>
<p>As this is a research and development platform, there will be
no long term support for this release and future RCs will
likely require a complete reflashing and reconfiguration of
your router. We apologize for the inconvenience but the state
of the art and the problems we are trying to solve are rapidly
moving targets that we must track closely. We will feed back
the results of this work into stable distributions.</p>
<h1 id="The-Beta-1-Ocean-City-release-RC5" style="font-family:
'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; margin-top: 0px;
margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px;
padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 1px;
padding-left: 0px; font-size: 20px; border-bottom-width: 1px;
border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187,
187); color: rgb(68, 68, 68); ">The Beta 1 "Ocean City"
release (RC5)</h1>
<p>CeroWrt is also aimed at (currently) a single hardware
platform for which fully open drivers are available: the
Netgear WNDR3700v2, a current 802.11abgn router using the
Atheros AR7161 rev 2 with gigabit Ethernet ports. CeroWrt runs
on the WNDR3700v2 only as it requires more than 8Mbytes of
flash. Note that there may still be WNDR3700v1's in the retail
channel. Information on distinguishing them can be found in
the bufferbloat wiki at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
class="external"
href="http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bismark/wiki/Wndr3700v2"
style="color: rgb(42, 86, 133); text-decoration: none;
padding-left: 12px; background-image:
url(http://www.bufferbloat.net/images/external.png);
background-position: 0% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat
no-repeat; ">http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bismark/wiki/Wndr3700v2</a></p>
<p>The Ocean City release is based on Linux 2.6.39.4; the DNS
server is ISC Bind 9.8.0-P4 running from xinetd and in a
chroot jail. RC5 is based on OpenWrt head of development as of
commit 65dea0f0b144abbeb445c9d24a605aba506678a0, Thu Aug 11
13:52:40 2011 +0000.</p>
<p>Systematic testing of this software has just begun and the
performance of the router is at this date unknown relative to
other firmware.</p>
<p>Release candidate firmware can be downloaded from:</p>
<p><a class="external"
href="http://huchra.bufferbloat.net/%7Ecero1/" style="color:
rgb(42, 86, 133); text-decoration: none; padding-left: 12px;
background-image:
url(http://www.bufferbloat.net/images/external.png);
background-position: 0% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat
no-repeat; ">http://huchra.bufferbloat.net/~cero1/</a></p>
<p>Installation directions can be found at:<br>
<a class="external"
href="http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/OCEAN_CITY_INSTALLATION_GUIDE"
style="color: rgb(42, 86, 133); text-decoration: none;
padding-left: 12px; background-image:
url(http://www.bufferbloat.net/images/external.png);
background-position: 0% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat
no-repeat; ">http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/OCEAN_CITY_INSTALLATION_GUIDE</a></p>
<p>Release notes are at:<br>
<a class="external"
href="http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/OCEAN_CITY_RELEASE_NOTES"
style="color: rgb(42, 86, 133); text-decoration: none;
padding-left: 12px; background-image:
url(http://www.bufferbloat.net/images/external.png);
background-position: 0% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat
no-repeat; ">http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/OCEAN_CITY_RELEASE_NOTES</a><br>
IRC discussions on CeroWrt take place at irc.freenode.net:
#bufferbloat<br>
IRC discussions on OpenWrt in general take place
on:irc.freenode.net: #openwrt</p>
<p>Mailing lists:</p>
<p>General discussion about CeroWrt takes place on the
bloat-devel list found at:<br>
<a class="external"
href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat-devel"
style="color: rgb(42, 86, 133); text-decoration: none;
padding-left: 12px; background-image:
url(http://www.bufferbloat.net/images/external.png);
background-position: 0% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat
no-repeat; ">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat-devel</a></p>
<p>General bufferbloat discussions can be found at:<br>
<a class="external"
href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat"
style="color: rgb(42, 86, 133); text-decoration: none;
padding-left: 12px; background-image:
url(http://www.bufferbloat.net/images/external.png);
background-position: 0% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat
no-repeat; ">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat</a></p>
<p>Thanks for giving CeroWrt a try!</p>
<p>The network you save may be your own.</p>
</div>
</span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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