BMX7 is a mesh routing protocol for Linux based operating systems. The academic paper with more theoretical details can be found here.

Content

• Installation
  • Installing in OpenWRT
  • Packages
• FAQ
• Usage
• Concepts
  • Autoconfiguration
  • Unicast Host Network Announcements (UHNA)
• Tunnel Announcements
• BMX7 Plugins
• Debugging

Installation

Requirements

The following tools and libraries are needed to obtain, compile, and install bmx7:

• git (debian package: git-core)
• gcc
• make
• build-essential
• libjson-c-dev zlib1g-dev libiw-dev
• libmbedtls-dev ( or mbedtls-2.4.0 from https://tls.mbed.org/download/mbedtls-2.4.0-gpl.tgz)

Optional for static configuration:

• uci-0.7.5 from http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/uci-0.7.5.tar.gz

The following Linux-kernel modules are needed (depending on used bmx7 features)

• ipv6
• tunnel6
• ip6_tunnel

The mbed TLS or PolarSSL crypto library is needed for cryptographic operations: Most tested with debian or mbedtls-2.4.0:

wget https://tls.mbed.org/download/mbedtls-2.4.0-gpl.tgz
tar xzvf mbedtls-2.4.0-gpl.tgz
cd mbedtls-2.4.0
make
sudo make install
# compile bmx7 with: make EXTRA_CFLAGS="-DCRYPTLIB=MBEDTLS_2_4_0"

Downloading

Latest development sources are available from bmx7 git repository:

git clone https://github.com/bmx-routing/bmx7.git
cd bmx7

Compile and Install

To only compile the main bmx7 daemon (no bmx7 plugins):

make EXTRA_CFLAGS="-DCRYPTLIB=MBEDTLS_2_4_0"
sudo make install

Installing in OpenWRT

BMX7 is currently in the official OpenWRT-routing feed, so to install it from a existing system you can use opkg:

opkg install bmx7 bmx7-uci-config

If you are compiling your own OpenWRT, you can add the routing feed (already enabled by default) which can be found here: https://github.com/openwrt-routing/packages

Then run "make menuconfig" and select the bmx7 package in Networking -> Routing and redirection

It is recommended to select also, at least, the uci plugin (bmx7-uci-config)

You can select "luci-app-bmx7" to have a nice web interface for manage and monitorize the routing daemon.

Finally type "make" to build the image.

Packages

Available packages exist for the following distributions:

• Arch Linux package(AUR): https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bmx7/
• Debian Linux package(deb): Coming soon

FAQ

1. How does BMX7 work and on which OSI layer?

   • BMX7 is a routing protocol that operates on layer 3 of the OSI layer; it extends the concept of receiver-driven routing and the principles of DSDV routing. The routing update of BMX7 (in contrast to traditional DSDV) contains a single and verifiable heartbeat value which unambiguously identifies a particular node of the network and a specific version of this nodes' self-defined description and routing-update version.

2. The goal of BMX7/SEMTOR?

   • The goal of BMX7 is to provide secure mechanisms to ensure that non-trusted nodes in an open network are effectively prevented from disrupting the routing between trusted nodes.
   • It's achieved by enforcing the exclusion of a given set of identified faulty nodes.

3. Differences with bmx6

   • TBD

4. Similar Software

   • AODV,
   • Babel,
   • BMX6,
   • OLSR,
   • batman-adv