This is the second major AREDN® release to contain both OLSR and Babel routing daemons. The long term goal is to remove OLSR and switch entirely to Babel, but only once the majority of nodes have been upgraded.

Notes

• Some new features only appear in the Babel-only nightly build and are not in this release.

• Halow/802.11ah devices are supported in the Babel-only nightly build and are not in this release.

New Device Support

• Ubiquiti NanoStation AC Loco

Bug fixes and Enhancements:

• ​​Improve location handling when map cannot be reached. #2371

• Fixed TPLink CP710 problem in Mesh mode #2338

• Fixed setting channel on M9 node shuts down RF #2324

• Fixed low memory issues on 64MB PBE 400AC #2253

• Fixed arednlink dump in support data #2344

• Add support for NanoStation AC loco #2333

• Fixed parsing of tagged dhcp options #2330

• Fixed math for generating M9 channel numbers. #2325

• Fixed LAN devices routing Internet traffic over mesh instead of WAN. #2229

• Fixed “Restore backup requires a reboot and packages not applied” #2193

• Fixed a memory leak causing high CPU usage and increased jitter/latency #2192

• Fixed “Cannot Change Channels on Rocket RM3” #2171

• Fixed Port Forwarding failing #2169

• Pulling support data from 'mesh ptmp' device no longer breaks all RF connectivity #2141

• Removed duplicate neighborhood node reports #2130

• WAN to LAN port forwarding no longer creates a forwarding rule for dtdlink #2119

• Port forwards don't work - fixed #2103

• WAN port forwarding is no longer applied to mesh requests #1993

• Migrated to OpenWRT 24.10.2 #2272

• Fixed routing to WAN subnet from local #2190

• Fixed calculation of 3 GHz channel numbers #2173

• Completely rewrote the routing rules. #2165

• Fixed messages display #2161

• Improved URL parser. #2317

• Fixed package validator to no longer allow a path as part of the url. #2315

• Quieted failed message pings. #2312

• Tightened proxy URL validation. #2311

• Common validation of the URLs now passes to the various proxy urls. #2307

• Speed up the status page by avoiding DNS lookups. #2300

• Added missing backup message when autoselecting firmware. #2284

• Now we ping the correct download servers rather than hardwired #2281

• No longer add WAN default route if there isn't one. #2279

• Added timeout to socat in case connection hangs #2276

• Changed check for adhoc mode to avoid a circular dependency #2268

• Disabled wpa_supplicant to save memory if we're not using encryption #2256

• Now autoselect correct upgrade firmware after refresh. #2247

• Enabled more channels in PtXP modes #2246

• Restart babel when we restart the network #2245

• Make sure DNS is always active on the node with a wired connection. #2240

• Added a publish/subscribe-like mechanism to AREDNlink #2236

• Force br-dtdlink to always have an IPv6 link local address. #2235

• Fixed wifi migration from old UI. #2217

• Use broadcast address in all xlink OLSR payloads. #2211

• Fixed bad port forwarding for WAN only. #2205

• Fixed memory leak in dnsmasq. #2203

• Fixed missing reboot after restore. #2200

• Allow LAN subnet access to WAN subnet for port forwarding to function #2197

• Use the DEVICE variable when setting up wan/lan routes during network setup #2196

• Only scan in mesh mode #2145

• Improved handling of nodes with multiple names and ip addresses. #2135

• No longer masquerade link local broadcast traffic #2128

• SNAT locally originating traffic for tunnels and xlinks #2125

• Removed extra 'close' of file descriptor #170

• Fixed send typo #169

• Fixed detection of neighbors which caused unnecessary disconnects. #165

• Ardenlink 0.0.2 #161

• Now avoid popen + lines bug in metrics lua code. #159

• Added timeout to socat in case connection hangs #157

• Various Ardenlink improvements. #156

• Minor performance and reliability improvements #154

• Now make sure we reject any resource from an unknown host. #152

• Support custom babel rules #148

• A number of improvements to Ardenlink #147

• Use unicast on wifi when we can to get better link data #145

• Fixed channel shutdown which was stopping it restarting #142

• Harsher treatment of links with packet loss or poor round trip times #139

• Because there are hidden nodes, we cannot optimize and use a best connection #137

• Don't redistribute new xlink/tunnel endpoint addresses #134

• Fixed bad assumption about visibility of nodes on mesh wifi. #133

• Ardenlink pub/sub like mechanism #130

• Stopped logging EPIPE errors on local sockets as it’s just noise. #127

• Now sync up the babel config in nightly to match what being used in babel nightly #121

• Fixed metric process name #118

• Per process memory info added  #116

• Added per-process memory statistics #114

• Don’t include wifis in babel config when not used for mesh #107

If you're interested in experimenting with the HaLow devices, the devices that AREDN supports to date are here:

https://github.com/aredn/aredn/blob/babel/SUPPORTED_DEVICES.md#morsemicro-and-partners

The Tube-AHM will likely be the most desirable product, because unlike all the others it's designed for outdoor use.  It's reminiscent of a Ubiquiti Bullet: Ethernet on the bottom end, N-connector on the top.

To find the software, use AREDN's AFS (Automated Firmware Selector): https://downloads.arednmesh.org/afs/www/

Select the babel nightly build, then search for either ALFA or Heltec.

900 MHz Meshtastic is oriented towards a mesh concept and their nodes use omni antennas almost exclusively.  In contrast, we expect most AREDN users will use 900 MHz as a point to point link to drill through vegetation.  As such, a Yagi antenna would be used on each end.  Here a few sources (not an exclusive list!)

https://www.l-com.com/wireless-antenna-900-mhz-yagi-antenna

https://www.pasternack.com/yagi-antennas-category.aspx

https://www.air802.com/yagi-900-mhz-antenna-9-dBi-806-to-960-MHz

Performance reports appreciated!

Enjoy!

The AREDN Team