Public IPv6 (6LoWPAN/RPL) network with M3 nodes

 

Difficulty: High

Duration: 45 minutes

Prerequisites: Configure SSH Access / Understand IPv6 subnetting / Private IPv6/6LoWPAN/RPL network with M3 nodes

Description: The aim of this tutorial is to discover the basics of Contiki uIP stack & tools for IoT-LAB IPv6. You will reserve some nodes on the Grenoble site, set them up with the two provided firmwares using CLI tools, and create a simple IPv6 network in IoT-LAB. You will access nodes over HTTP over IPv6 from the SSH frontend, using a Contiki tunslip6 bridge.

  1. Log into the Web portal with your account credentials
  2. Submit a new experiment:
    • Set an experiment name (no spaces nor funny chars in the experiment name)
    • Duration: 60 minutes and starting “As soon as possible“
    • Choose ten nodes with Architecture m3 (at86rf231) / Site = grenoble / Number = 10 and click “Add to experiment”
  3. Wait experiment state Running in the Schedule dashboard section. After click on experiment details and visualize which nodes you are booked and verify that you have Success in the deployment result
  4. Download firmware binaries on SSH frontend: 
    my_computer$ ssh <login>@grenoble.iot-lab.info
    • Border Router: bridge between the server and the IoT-LAB IPv6 network 
      <login>@grenoble:~$ wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/iot-lab/iot-lab/firmwares/contiki/border-router.iotlab-m3 -O border-router.iotlab-m3
    • HTTP server: simple IPv6 node 
      <login>@grenoble:~$ wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/iot-lab/iot-lab/firmwares/contiki/http-server.iotlab-m3 -O http-server.iotlab-m3

    View Border Router and HTTP Server source code on GitHub.

  5. Choose an available IPv6 prefix for the site you are experimenting on. For example in Grenoble testbed :
    • we choose 2001:660:5307:3100::/64
  6. Choose one node in your nodes list to implement the Border Router (BR) node
    • we chose node m3-1
  7. Start tunslip6 on the SSH frontend: 
    • <login>@grenoble:~$ sudo tunslip6.py -v2 -L -a m3-1 -p 20000 2001:660:5307:3100::1/64
slip connected to ``172.16.10.1:20000''

15:38:19 opened tun device ``/dev/tun0''
0000.000 ifconfig tun0 inet `hostname` up
0000.004 ifconfig tun0 add 2001:660:5307:3100::1/64
0000.005 ifconfig tun0 add fe80::660:5307:3100:1/64
0000.007 ifconfig tun0

tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
          inet adr:192.168.1.4  P-t-P:192.168.1.4  Masque:255.255.255.255
          adr inet6: 2001:660:5307:3100::1/64 Scope:Global
          adr inet6: fe80::660:5307:3100:1/64 Scope:Lien
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 lg file transmission:500
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
    • Note 1: leave the terminal open (you don’t want to kill tunslip6, it bridges the BR to the front-end network)
    • Note 2: If you have an error “overlaps with routes”, it’s because another experiment is using the same ipv6 prefix (e.g. : 2001:660:5307:3100::/64).You can view currently used IPv6 prefixes on the frontend SSH with this command 
      <login>@grenoble:~$ ip -6 route
2001:660:5307:30fff::/64 dev eth0  proto kernel  metric 256  mtu 1500 advmss 1440 hoplimit 4294967295
2001:660:5307:3100::/64 dev tun0  proto kernel  metric 256  mtu 1500 advmss 1440 hoplimit 4294967295
fe80::/64 dev eth1  proto kernel  metric 256  mtu 1500 advmss 1440 hoplimit 4294967295
fe80::/64 dev eth0  proto kernel  metric 256  mtu 1500 advmss 1440 hoplimit 4294967295
fe80::/64 dev tun0  proto kernel  metric 256  mtu 1500 advmss 1440 hoplimit 4294967295
default via 2001:660:5307:30ff:ff:: dev eth0  metric 1  mtu 1500 advmss 1440 hoplimit 4294967295
    • Note 3: if you did not already authenticate using iotlab-auth, do it now: 
      <login>@grenoble:~$ iotlab-auth -u login
  8. Deploy the Border Router (BR) node on selected node using the CLI tool iotlab-node. 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ iotlab-node --update ~/border-router.iotlab-m3 -l grenoble,m3,1
{
    "0": [
        "m3-1.grenoble.iot-lab.info"
    ]
}
  9. Get the Border Router IPv6 address from tunslip output: 
    ...
Platform starting in 1...
GO!
[in clock_init() DEBUG] Starting systick timer at 100Hz

0473.257 *** Address:2001:660:5307:3100::1 => 2001:0660:5307:3100
0473.257  Starting 'Border router process' 'Web server'Got configuration message of type P
0473.257 Setting prefix 2001:660:5307:3100::
0473.257 Server IPv6 addresses:
0473.257  2001:660:5307:3100::2354
0473.257  fe80::2354
  10. Ping6 BR node using global address: 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ ping6 2001:660:5307:3100::2354
  11. View BR’s web-interface: 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ lynx -dump http://[2001:660:5307:3100::2354]
    • Note: here, you could also use your web browser (Firefox, Chrome) with your own IPv6 connection

    You should see a web page with no neighbors and no routes.

       Neighbors

   Routes
  12. Deploy one HTTP server node picking another node (here node 2) 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ iotlab-node --update ~/http-server.iotlab-m3 -l grenoble,m3,2
{
    "0": [
        "m3-2.grenoble.iot-lab.info"
    ]
}
  13. Check the BR’s web interface to see the newcomer.
  14. Grab the HTTP server node’s IPv6 address from the BR’s web interface 
    Neighbors
fe80::9982
Routes
2001:660:5307:3100::9982/128 (via fe80::9982) 16711353s

    Understand M3 nodes uid / ipv6 address match.

  15. Ping the HTTP server’s global address from SSH frontend 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ ping6 2001:660:5307:3100::9982
  16. Deploy one more HTTP server node (for example m3-3)
  17. Check again the BR’s web-interface and see the newcomer 
       Neighbors
fe80::9982
fe80::b868

   Routes
2001:660:5307:3100::9982/128 (via fe80::9982) 16711418s
2001:660:5307:3100::b868/128 (via fe80::9982) 16711403s
  18. Download the page of the first HTTP server: 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ lynx -dump http://[2001:660:5307:3100::9982]
    Neighbors
fe80::2354 PREFERRED
fe80::b868

   Default Route
fe80::2354

   Routes
  19. Deploy HTTP servers on all remaining nodes (with –exclude iotlab-node option) 
    <login>@grenoble:~$ iotlab-node --update ~/http-server.iotlab-m3 --exclude grenoble,m3,1+2+3
{
    "0": [
       "m3-4.grenoble.iot-lab.info", 
       "m3-5.grenoble.iot-lab.info", 
       "m3-7.grenoble.iot-lab.info", 
       "m3-9.grenoble.iot-lab.info", 
       "m3-287.grenoble.iot-lab.info", 
       "m3-288.grenoble.iot-lab.info", 
       "m3-289.grenoble.iot-lab.info"
    ]
}
  20. Check again the BR’s web-interface (reload) and see the newcomers 
       Neighbors
fe80::9982
fe80::9176
fe80::a176
fe80::1162
fe80::b982
fe80::9883
fe80::c370
fe80::b868

   Routes
2001:660:5307:3100::9982/128 (via fe80::9982) 16711405s
2001:660:5307:3100::b868/128 (via fe80::9982) 16711404s
2001:660:5307:3100::2162/128 (via fe80::9982) 16711354s
2001:660:5307:3100::9176/128 (via fe80::9176) 16711404s
2001:660:5307:3100::a176/128 (via fe80::a176) 16711403s
2001:660:5307:3100::1162/128 (via fe80::1162) 16711406s
2001:660:5307:3100::b982/128 (via fe80::b982) 16711406s
2001:660:5307:3100::9883/128 (via fe80::9883) 16711355s
2001:660:5307:3100::c370/128 (via fe80::c370) 16711403s

    Study how RPL shapes the routing table.

    The RPL tree can be represented as shown below:

    <login>@grenoble:~$ wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/iot-lab/contiki/raw/master/examples/ipv6/http-server/get_rpl_tree.sh -O get_rpl_tree.sh
<login>@grenoble:~$ bash get_rpl_tree.sh 2001:660:5307:3100::2354
 2001:660:5307:3100::2354
     2001:660:5307:3100::1162
     2001:660:5307:3100::9176
     2001:660:5307:3100::9883
     2001:660:5307:3100::9982
         2001:660:5307:3100::2162
     2001:660:5307:3100::a176
     2001:660:5307:3100::b982
     2001:660:5307:3100::c370
  21. Test public access with an IPv6 proxyGo to the ipv6 proxy site and use your border router url 
    http://[2001:660:5307:3100::2354]