Re: ANNOUNCE: rpld an another RPL implementation for Linux

[Reuben Hawkins <reubenhwk@gmail.com>]

There is a COPYRIGHT file in radvd which I just read for the first time today. It’s been there for 19+ years. Sounds very BSD to me. I’ve been maintainer for 9 years. As far as I’m concerned, you can do with the code whatever you like.  Good luck. 👍 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 29, 2019, at 2:57 PM, Alexander Aring <alex.aring@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I had some free time, I wanted to know how RPL [0] works so I did a
> implementation. It's _very_ basic as it only gives you a "routable"
> (is that a word?) thing afterwards in a very constrained setup of RPL
> messages.
> 
> Took ~1 month to implement it and I reused some great code from radvd
> [1]. I released it under the same license (BSD?). Anyway, I know there
> exists a lot of memory leaks and the parameters are just crazy as not
> practical in a real environment BUT it works.
> 
> I changed a little bit the dependencies from radvd (because fancy new things):
> 
> - lua for config handling
> - libev for event loop handling
> - libmnl for netlink handling
> 
> The code is available at:
> 
> https://github.com/linux-wpan/rpld
> 
> With a recent kernel (I think 4.19 and above) and necessary user space
> dependencies, just build it and run the start script. It will create
> some virtual IEEE 802.15.4 6LoWPAN interfaces and you can run
> traceroute from namespace ns0 (which is the RPL DODAG root) to any
> other node e.g. namespace ns5. With more knowledge of the scripts you
> can change the underlying topology, everybody is welcome to improve
> them.
> 
> I will work more on it when I have time... to have at least something
> running means the real fun can begin (but it was already fun before).
> 
> The big thing what everybody wants is source routing, which requires
> some control plane for RPL into the kernel to say how and when to put
> source routing headers in IPv6. I think somehow I know what's
> necessary now... but I didn't implemented it, this simple
> implementation just filling up routing tables as RPL supports storing
> (routing table) or non-storing (source routing) modes. People tells me
> to lookup frrouting to look how they do source routing, I will if I
> get the chance.
> 
> It doesn't run on Bluetooth yet, I know there exists a lack of UAPI to
> figure out the linklayer which is used by 6LoWPAN. I need somehow a
> SLAVE_INFO attribute in netlink to figure this out and tell me some
> 6LoWPAN specific attributes. I am sorry Bluetooth people, but I think
> you are also more interested in source routing because I heard
> somebody saying it's the more common approach outside (but I never saw
> any other RPL implementation than unstrung running).
> 
> Also I did something in my masters thesis to make a better parent
> selection, if this implementation becomes stable I can look to get
> this migrated.
> 
> Please, radvd maintainer let me know if everything is okay from your
> side. As I said I reused some code from radvd. I also operate on
> ICMPv6 sockets. The same to Michael Richardson unstrung [2]. If there
> is anything to talk or you have complains, I can change it.
> 
> Thanks, I really only wanted to get more knowledge about routing
> protocols and how to implement such. Besides all known issues, I still
> think it's a good starting point.
> 
> - Alex
> 
> [0] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6550
> [1] https://github.com/reubenhwk/radvd
> [2] https://github.com/AnimaGUS-minerva/unstrung