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Does self hosting your own internet count? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago by b_n@sh.itjust.works to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

There's a live stream tomorrow on the 'tube setting up a MeshCore companion for sending messages over radio waves directly instead of relying on internet providers.

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[–] 4grams@awful.systems 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

It’s a lot of fun, but not an internet replacement yet. They did just come out with a new dual band that has enough bandwidth to do something useful. Can’t wait to give it a try.

Still very worth setting up. I have a node that runs in my attic, and a few that I can take around with me. I can get good single most anywhere in my neighborhood, and I have enough nodes nearby that I can pretty much communicate with people all over the metro area (I’m in the twin cities).

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

not really Internet, just a group chat.

that said, making a basic internet on up of it wouldn't be too hard.

[–] eutampieri@feddit.it 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I was looking for a solution that lets someone use Yggdrasil (crypto routed network overlay) over LoRa. The basic idea is to use Yggdrasil multicast and use Reticulum RNodes I with tncattach.

I fear that there'll be too much overhead (the MTU is only around 500 bytes, and IPv6 minimum MTU is 1280) because of IPv4 fragmentation

Links:

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 41 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

BTW, Meshcore is MIT and not fully FOSS, while Meshtastic is GPL and fully FOSS.

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And both use LoRa which is proprietary.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fact, but since that's common and cheap, and I'm not aware of an equivalent FOSS alternative, I'd go with Meshtastic, if were to dabble. And I dabble. :D

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I believe the only part of Meshcore that's not FOSS is the official app, and there's a FOSS alternative.

Personally, I'd use Meshcore. I tried MT for a month or so. I never saw a conversation, just a few scattered "test" messages. Meanwhile, on MC, I was away from my phone for 4 hours yesterday and came back to 250+ coherent messages in a conversation from all over the region (not to mention the hundreds of test messages).

MT is better in ad-hoc situations since clients can repeat messages, but MC is better for establishing a region-wide communication network.

[–] sleepundertheleaves@infosec.pub 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's interesting. I had the same experience with Meshtastic - I ran it for a few months and almost all I saw were test messages and comments about the weather. That encourages me to dig out my radio bits and try MC 😆

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Do it!

Here's what it looks like around me: https://analyzer.letsmesh.net/channels?region=pnw

I'd check the map to see if there are repeaters around your area.

[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Agreed. Oddly enough, my Meshtastic contacts are much farther away than my farthest MeshCore contacts but MeshCore seems to be much livelier.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A license doesn't have to be copyleft to be FOSS. Stop trying to redefine things because you don't like them.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's not what I did. Not all of Meshcore is FOSS. There are proprietary components. Therefore it's not fully FOSS.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh sorry, I thought "Meshcore is MIT" meant it was all MIT.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

All good!

I still value GPL much higher than MIT, which is why I thought important for others to know, in case they have a preference too. But yeah, Meshcore is just not all open source and some people could also have a preference on that. 😄

[–] d13@programming.dev 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I've been looking into this as well and just bought my first components.

I'm trying Meshtastic first and then will try Meshcore.

What does everybody think of Reticulum Network and RNode? It honestly seems superior conceptually to Meshtastic/Meshcore, but I'm not sure how good it is in practice or if anybody is actually using it.

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

People who studied the code speak really fondly about reticulum, however, it's not as popular for building the lora based mesh networks, because the full stack does not run on the simple microcontroller. You need what is basically a standard PC connected to it. Given that mesh repeaters are usually designed to run off-grid on solar and battery, wasting additional power for a raspberry pi or similar computer would make the project unfeasible.

All while Meshtastic or Meshcore are perfectly happy with the esp32 or nrf microcontrollers. And the nrf ones can run without a direct sunshine for days with the reasonably large battery.

[–] kaedon@slrpnk.net 5 points 18 hours ago

They're working on fixing that ;) https://github.com/attermann/microReticulum

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 24 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Just FYI at the speed meshtastic/core is talking about, it would be very slow. Like dialup would look fast.

But its a fun hobby! Take a look over at !meshtastic@mander.xyz for anyone interested. Meshtastic (and meshcore) are also SUUUPER alpha so dont expect anything polished.

[–] b_n@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Totally agree. I saw some people doing just plain text messaging and it looked fairly snappy. I assume we're miles away from the idea of pushing pixels on LoRa for a while.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If there's a, say, incident that makes the government want to shut down internet services, those text messages could cone in handy. And im sure the speed will increase as development continues; it always does.

Starting now means you'll end up being an important node later.

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

speed will increase as development continues

LoRa is already surfing on the bleeding edge of physics. There is no way to get anything more out of it, other than allocating wider EM spectrum for this usecase.

There are some radio amateurs in my area trying Meshcore on 169Mhz for example. There are also some new boards available that can do LoRa on 2.4Ghz, but both approaches have some downsides as well.

For a more stable and reliable network, we would also need radios capable of communicating on multiple channels simultaneously (remember, the whole thing started off as a reaction to really cheap, almost disposable dev boards), but now we're approaching the complexity and requirements of the traditional mobile networks.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

If there is an actual emergency, I would say these are a nifty introduction to ham radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZxR-qtGH7c

Its amazing how far you can go with a somewhat simple setup. You can go really cheap with a Baofeng.

[–] MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One big downside to ham radio (as someone with my license) is that you can't use encryption. Which is fine for some use cases, but does limit the usefulness in the "government shut down the internet" kind of scenario.

Which, I suppose if you're already using back-channels to circumvent some broader government censorship, maybe abiding by FCC rules isn't a priority anymore, but IMO this is an area where large mesh networks of "consumer" devices with encryption very much still has value.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yep i agree. Although it sounds like its trivial to break lora/tastic encryption from what was discussed online. Ill be honest i never went down that rabbit hole.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 days ago

MeshCore runs at 2.73 kbps and it can send a short text message in a fraction of a second. The short turbo preset on Meshtastic is 21.88 kbps, but that's still too slow for images. The higher speed reduces the range by quite a bit too.

For images, you would be better off using WiFi HaLow, which runs several mbps on 900 MHz.

If you have a ham license, there is HamWAN and ARDEN as well. They are fast enough to stream live video. They can work over long distances, but the high gain antennas have to be aimed carefully.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 3 points 1 day ago

correct, the real mesh internet replacement is HaLow, that can get a whopping 4Mbps or something.

[–] meh@piefed.blahaj.zone 12 points 2 days ago

meshcore is licensed the way you do it if you plan to go freemium down the road. its fine to use if your area has already gone that way. but meshtastic fits better in a foss standard and does the same thing.

either way you go its best to see these as fancy pagers not diy instant messagers. they have some great potential in a world where govs or nature can knock down cell service, if you're purposeful and realistic about it. but they are not as easy to build as youtube would tell you. and they're not gonna replace your phone full time.

[–] Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Mesh is cool, but you get faster speeds on amateur HF or 900 bands and a further distance

[–] b_n@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 days ago

Fair, however the meshcore gateway drug starter kit is like 40eur 😅.

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

Mesh also allows you to use encryption.

[–] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 10 points 2 days ago

Sure, but you don't need a license for mesh.

[–] MIXEDUNIVERS@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 days ago

i really want to see HALOW become cheap and highly availeble

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

Honestly I think it would be cool to see a widespread up network based around Bluetooth and WiFi. They don't have the same range but the upside is that tons of devices support them.