Introduction

Open-Mesh provides a free administration, alerting and mapping system called the "dashboard".  It allows you to configure the SSIDs, splash page, passwords, and user bandwith for your network.  You can also see how your network is doing at a glance.  Here is an example dashboard status page.

Create your Network "Dashboard"

It is easy to add your network to Open-Mesh.com.  Simply go to www.open-mesh.com and click on the "Dashboard" link at the top of the page.  Then click on the  "1.  Create your Network" link on the left.  Next you'll see a page that asks for:  

• Network Name.  This is the name you want to give this network.  You will use this name to make changes to the network, display reports, etc.  It should be something easy to remember.  You will be able to enter a different name for reports in a later step.
• Password.  This limits access and prevents users from making changes to your network.  Without the password, users will still be able to display limited reports, but not make any changes to your network.
• Email.  Enter the email address you would like to use if we need to contact you.  We will never share this with others.
• Address for First Node.  This is an approximate location for the first node.  To add nodes, you will be shown a map (Google Map) that you click on to place nodes.  By entering an address here, you will be centered on the correct location for your network.  If you don't have a full address, that is OK - enter at least a city, state or zip/postal code.  You will be able to "drag" the map, but the closer you get now, the easier it will be later to add your nodes.
  
• Email for Notifications.  Enter the email addresses, separated by spaces, for all people you'd like to receive "outage" notifications.  These are sent daily for the complete network.  

Once you add your network, you be taken to the login page.  Sign in and click on the "Edit" button.  Here, you'll be able to customize your network by setting options such as the splash page, user bandwidth (throttling), etc. But first, let's add your nodes to the network...

Adding Nodes to your Network

On the bottom of the "Edit Network" page is an "Add/Edit Nodes" button. Click this and you will see a Google map of your area. Note that you can often (depending upon where you are) click the "Satellite" view button and zoom in for a closer look as well as see buildings, etc.

Now click the map where you want to add a node. Next you'll see a dialog that looks like this:

Enter a name for this node and then its MAC address. This is usually found on a label on the bottom of the router.  A MAC address is a sequence of numbers often separated by colons such as 00:12:cf:7c:61:24. If the colons aren't shown, just add them after every two digits when entering the MAC address.  Accton MR3201A nodes may have an IP address shown in the form: 5.x.y.z where x,y and z are 1-3 digits each.  If your node has this, you can also enter the IP here.  Note that node IP addresses always start with a 5, so if router doesn't have an IP address or it starts with some other number, use the MAC address instead.

You can also enter optional extra descriptive text that will be shown on the reports. 

When you are done, click "add" and this node should now appear on the map.  Note that once a node is added, it can take up to 5 minutes for it to "check in" with the server and report its status.  Now is a good time to add all your nodes to the network. 

If you will be installing the nodes elsewhere, it is helpful to write with a "sharpie" (or other pen that can write on plastic) the location for this node on the back.  That way, when you take the nodes out to the location you'll know where to put each one.

When all your nodes have been added and you have waited 5 minutes, click on the "Network Status" link at the top of the page and you'll be taken to a report that will show you the same google map, plus other information that is helpful to monitor your network status.  We'll go over these options in more detail later.  But for now, let's look at some of the changes you can make to how your network functions...

Edit your Network configuration

Go back to the "Edit Network" link (at the top of the page) and you'll see you have many additional options that will allow you to fine-tune your network.

The first two sections show the information you entered when you created your account. 

Below that are configurations for two "virtual" access points which are different ESSIDs users can connect through.  The first Access Point (AP) is normally used as an Open (public) AP and the second as a private (encrypted) Access Point for your own use.  Note that EVERY node can broadcast both SSIDs.

For Access point #1 (public), your options are:

• WPA-PSK Key.  This is a password to optionally limit users on the "public" ESSID.  This is normally left blank for an "open" network that anyone can use.  But if you want to limit this to just friends and neighbors, enter a password here and give it to those that you want to have access to your network.
• Network Name.  The ESSID that users will see to connect to your public network.
• Splash Page.  A splash page is a page that users will see before being able to use your network.  It is a great tool to display messages you want your users to see.  If you would like to have a splash page, click the "Edit" button to enter a WYSIWYG / HTML editor.  Here you can make modifications to our standard "template" or completely start over and create your own splash page.  If you create your own or make extensive edits, make sure to include at least this in the HTML:

  <a href="$authtarget">Enter</a>

  or your Splash page will be rejected and you will have to start over.  The above HTML is the "magic" link that makes the Splash page work and the editor will not let you have a page without it.  You can replace the "Enter" text with an image link.  If you aren't comfortable with HTML and editors, we recommend making minor changes to the template, replacing the text with your own message(s).

  The splash page can be a very useful community messaging system.  You can post messages you want your users to see here.

  A few tips:

  • To add images, click the 'image' icon in the upper right and use UPLOAD.  This will copy your images to your node for use by the splash page.  You can't just link to external images on splash pages since at the time the splash page is shown, network access is blocked.  There is an exception to this:  Only normal (port 80) browsing is blocked, so if your images are on an SSL server, you can use external links instead of uploading the images first.
  • To see the page with proper formatting, click the 'source' tab then the 'preview' tab.
  • To reload the original template, delete everything on the page and click the 'save' icon in the upper left.

  Once you have edited your splash page, save it using the small "disk" icon in the upper left of the editor.  You can then close the editor window and enable your new splash page with the "enable" checkbox.  Within 5 minutes, the splash page should be shown for NEW users who want to use your network. 

• Redirect URL.  Similar to the splash page, a redirect URL is a page your users will see before other pages they might visit.  Unlike the splash page, a redirect URL can be ANY internet page (such as yahoo.com, google.com or your personal or favorite blog.  Redirect URLs do not have an "enter" concept.  Users will see this page first, then can click the "home" button in their browser to go to their home page.  You can use either a splash page or redirect URL or both.  If you enable both, the splash page will be shown first.
• Client Timeouts.  These are the times, in minutes, between showing the splash/redirect pages to users of your network.  1440 represents once per day.  60 would be once per hour, etc.
• Download/Upload limits.  Often called "throttling", these are the maximum speeds users will get when attached to your network.  It is a good idea to set these to between 10% and 25% of the speed of your internet connection.  This will make sure that one or two users can't bring the network to halt by consuming the entire bandwidth.  So, if you have a 4mb DSL, a download speed of 400 to 1000 would be ideal in most cases.  Upload speeds are often far less than download, so limiting the upload speed to 10% of the download speed is a good idea.
• Access Control List.  This is a list of MAC addresses that will be allowed to use this network.  You can use this to limit access to certain computers and block all other users.  Enter one MAC address per line.  Or leave this blank to allow any MAC address.

(more documentation coming...)

Network Status

The Network Status page gives you a snapshot of the quality of your network.  It contains 5 reports in one:

1. Summary:  A quick overview showing the network name, the number of nodes, the number of "trouble" nodes and the number of users and bytes transferred over the last interval (the interval being the timeout you set for your splash/redirect page above).
2. Access Point #1 Users:  Displays the users and usage of your network for the last 24 hours.
3. Node List:  Normally shows only "trouble" nodes, but can be expanded to show all nodes on your network.  Some of its highlights are:
   • 24-hour network uplink quality graph.  This maps the "gateway metric" for the last 24 hours.  "Now" is always on the right side of the graph, and each vertical line in the graph represents 10 minutes and shows the metric that the node had at that time.  These are color coded by quality where a  "green" is good, yellow is marginal, and red is poor.  Ideally, this graph will be all or nearly all green.  If you see a lot of variability, it is likely due to a low signal (eg, the node is too far from its neighbors).  The Network Diagram Report (see below) can help you spot these.
   • Current & average node link quality.  Ideally these will be pretty similar, but if there is a lot of signal fade or complete outage, you will see more variability.  Absolute quality numbers are also shown where 255 is perfect.  Generally, you will want this to be 175 or higher.
   • Problem nodes are sorted to the top.  The left column is a trouble indicator: Red indicates a node with a serious problem, yellow a node with an intermittent or marginal issue.
4. Network Diagram:  The Network Diagram draws node relationships. Nodes are shown as ellipses (gateways are marked with a (g) after the name).  The nodes are color-coded by their gateway connection quality, using the same scale as used for the 24-hour network quality graph above (green, yellow, red).  If a node isn't checking in at all, it will be gray.  Other features of this page are:
   • Extra circles around the ellipses indicate users.  So a node with 10 users will have 10 circles around it.
   • Color coded lines are drawn between the nodes that represent the signal quality between the nodes.  Each line should have an arrow at each end which means that both nodes can see each other.  Near the arrowhead the actual node to node quality is displayed as a number (0-255) where 255 is perfect.  Ideally each node will have at least 1 and preferably 2 green lines connecting them to each other.  This assures that each node has both a strong connection and a backup should something to that link fail.
   • Hover the cursor over any node to see the node IP address,  the number of hops to the gateway and the "TQ" number (route quality to the gateway).  TQ numbers of 200 and better are generally good.  Numbers below 175 will start showing a significant performance reduction.
5. Google Map.  The Google Map shows your nodes on overlayed on a map.  Some of its features include:
   • Color-coded node markers.  Green is good, yellow is marginal, Red is bad.
   • The current number of users are displayed on nodes, and the icon size increases with the number of users.
   • Hovering over a node shows its name, bytes transferred and users.
   • Clicking on a node marker displays a popup showing much more detail including:
     • 24-hour quality graph (shows the metrics as a color bar for the last 24-hours).
     • Average Metric.
     • Uplink IP (WAN IP of the gateway) which is useful if you need to ssh into the network.
     • IP and MAC addresses of the node (again, useful for ssh).
     • Total users and usage.
     • Minutes since the last node check-in.
     • A "Neighbors" tab that lists all nodes that this node can see directly and the link quality.