[Freedombox-discuss] CeroWRT (OpenWRT with DNSSEC, mesh routing, etc) RC5 is out

[John Gilmore]

I just noticed:

  http://www.bufferbloat.net/news/18

  CeroWrt is a project to resolve endemic problems in home networking
  today, and to push the state of the art of edge networks and routers
  forward. Projects include tighter integration with DNSSEC, wireless
  mesh networking (Wisp6), measurements of networking and censorship
  issues (BISMark), among others, notably reducing bufferbloat in both
  the wired and wireless components of the stack.

These folks are targeting much smaller hardware than FreedomBox
(Netgear wifi routers with >8MB of flash memory), but they are
actively making a plug-and-play-rather-than-administer router that
includes the basics of what FBX wants, like mesh routing, ipv6,
dnssec.  We can learn from them.

Their main research goal is to reduce "bufferbloat", which is the
tendency of network hardware and software (in the modern days of cheap
RAM) to queue packets rather than dropping them.  This confuses
classic TCP, which depends on packet loss to signal congestion.  When
TCP never hears back about congestion, it starts filling up the
buffers somewhere deep in the net, which seriously sideswipes the
latency experienced by all competing traffic.  Even one massive TCP
connection, in the presence of bufferbloat, can make dozens of other
nearby TCP connections take SECONDS to get through.  Unfortunately,
bufferbloat is everywhere in modern network hardware and software, so
removing it is a long-term project.  The CeroWRT folks are part of
the vanguard of fixing it.

	John