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Cisco Meraki

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Meraki is a network equipment manufacturer that provides hardware and software for wireless community networks. It creates a wireless network that coordinates with Meraki servers to distribute it's-user volunteered Internet bandwidth, usually from their residential DSL and cable connections. As of 2007, it is supported by advertising.

Business profile

Meraki was funded by Google and Sequoia Capital. The organization is based in Mountain View, California. Meraki has many people who worked on the MIT roofnet project.[1][2][3][4]

Software

Meraki has taken the roofnet software and created management software (called "Dashboard") to allow the mesh network to be set up. The software uses the SrcRR routing algorithm to determine the routes between the hardware devices. Media access and transport may be handled by ExOR algorithm. Each device periodically broadcasts, and all other devices in range will report their routes. Then the devices use that information to route packets to the nearest gateway. The routing is done primarily to determine a route to the nearest gateway (or device with an internet connection).[5]

When the node first starts up, it tests the ethernet port for connectivity to the internet. If it has connectivity to the internet, then it labels itself a "gateway device" and prepares to share some of that internet bandwidth with the mesh. If other nodes are within range and the ethernet port is not connected, then the node acts purely as a repeater to extend the mesh. Meraki claims that only about one in ten repeaters needs to be physically connected to the Internet for the design to work well. It then searches for other nearby Meraki nodes and advertises itself. Either through the internet or through the mesh, it then contacts Meraki and, on a regular basis, reports it status and network load. There are software features both to govern the amount of Internet bandwidth consumed by traffic from the wireless mesh as well as a means to meter such bandwidth usage. Central Meraki operations plays a role in helping to balance network loads between the different nodes and report on the global status of the mesh through Meraki's web site.

On the browseable map that Meraki provides, nodes are identified either by the label given to them by their owners during initial configuration or, if unnamed, then their ethernet port MAC address. It identifies the gateway devices and reports how many distinct users cumulative have been active and the cumulative amount of data transferred via this node. The map does not necessarily reflect the on-the-street experience because while a Neighbor Meraki Repeater might act as an adequate wireless base station in a SOHO network, it might not provide a good signal to the outside if it is not placed near a window. The map is updated daily, but most of the registered repeaters report zero users and zero bytes of data transferred. Some nodes show 10 or more distinct visitors. It seems as if old node registrations are never cleared, which suggests that the map over-represents the area where usable coverage exists.

When you browse the local wireless network, the nearest Meraki repeater will show a SSID of "Free the Net". When you connect to it, you get an RFC 1918 address (starting with 10.*). On the wireless side; the default gateway IP address is always 10.128.128.128 and the MAC address reported via the client-side "arp" command is always 00-18-0a-00-00-01.

After you connect to the Internet, small advertisements appear in your browser's toolbar telling you about businesses that are nearby.

Hardware

Meraki created two versions of the Meraki Mini, an indoor version and an outdoor version. The version for the 2006 beta program had 8 MB of flash and 32 MB of ram. The node has an ethernet port and a wireless antenna. Meraki announced a new outdoor product that will ship December 2007 with new Industrial Design done by Sparkfactor Design.[6][7] [8][9]

Terminology: The Mini goes by several names: node, gateway (when directly connected to the internet), repeater and signal booster (when not directly connected to the internet).

Limitations

Unlike some architectures (e.g. Cuwin [10]) the wireless clients do not have direct access to each other, and as such cannot share data, printers or other devices which are also clients. This may be seen as a security feature, but it makes a variety of common networking features very difficult. The only solution is to use a bridging VPN such as openvpn.

Management and configuration of the nodes depends upon internet connectivity back to Meraki home base. The DHCP address scheme used by the nodes is a static hash of the MAC address onto the entire 10.0.0.0/8 private network (the whole class A) space, which complicates routing when any segment of the 10/8 is used elsewhere in an internal network. The DHCP system also lacks a means of notification to a DNS server for dynamic dns updates for translation of assigned addresses. The DNS proxy (dnsmasq) used on the nodes suppresses SRV record request records, which some applications use to discover internet services (i.e. iChat/jabber to google talk). This limitation can be overcome by opening a terminal session to the gateway devices and modifying the configuration file.

Community projects

One of Meraki's earliest projects is to demonstrate their technology in a large city. They selected San Francisco to launch their community-based Free the Net campaign starting in the Lower Haight. They started by seeding the area with gateway devices to directly provide the Internet bandwidth and giving away repeaters. In the first year of the project, growth of the network was primarily into the Mission District. As of October 2007, they claim 20,000 distinct users (ever connected) and about 5 terabytes of data transferred in this network.[11][12][13][14][15]

Controversy

There has been some controversy[16] surrounding Meraki, due to the restrictive nature of their hardware and software EULAs, which prohibit installing custom firmware. Although the business nature of this move is understandable; many community members feel it shows a lack of regard to the guiding principles behind Meraki and its parent companies.

See also

References

  1. ^ Official website
  2. ^ Sequoiacap.com: list of funded companies
  3. ^ Meraki Cooks Up Wireless Mesh Router August 2, 2006
  4. ^ Theregister.com: Google-funded startup to offer free Wi-Fi in San Fransisco August 15, 2007
  5. ^ Meraki Linux software
  6. ^ Webarchive backup: December 2006: Meraki Mini Hardware Specifications
  7. ^ Meraki Mini
  8. ^ Meraki Solar
  9. ^ Sparkfactor Design
  10. ^ CUWIN
  11. ^ Meraki to Build Free Community WiFi Network via San Francisco March 4, 2007
  12. ^ Free the Net (San Francisco wireless community)
  13. ^ Free the Net - San Francisco Forum
  14. ^ Sharing the Internet with the World 2007
  15. ^ Startup promises free wireless web in SF AP, January 4, 2008
  16. ^ Slashdot article with commentary March 24, 2008
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