So Cal Free Net.org

Unfortunately we need to cancel the meeting tonight. We're still helping out (and later packing up) at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and, frankly, after several late nights at Qualcomm, some of us being evacuated, etc, there's no one left to run it.

Next month we'll have some pics and talk and lessons learned to share, along with the Meraki Outdoor to pass around.

Sorry about that, and see you next month!

This month we're going to do something a little different at the meeting - we're going to have a 'hack night' and actually put something together.

Bring along an old PC and some spare NIC cards and put together a working m0n0wall or pfsense box. There will be people there who've done it before to help out.

Or just come along and watch!

PFsense is a great project derived from m0n0wall. It has the concept of add-in modules, and some of them are particularly useful - in particular the Squid caching proxy to reduce bandwidth usage and increase performance.

We use both m0n0wall and pfsense a lot in our projects and need to install a new pfsense caching web proxy in Golden Hill to help with some heavy loads. Matt will be building and configuring a box to install.

Our regular monthly meeting occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month from 6:30 to 8:30. It is held at the new location of UCSD Extension in Mission Valley at 404 Camino Del Rio S., Suite 102 in room MV27. (UCSD Driving Directions.) Park in the lot outside, enter through the main doors and head to the right. You'll find a small reception area for the UCSD space there on the ground floor. This is invariably a fun geek night for all. Please come along and join in.

Our monthly "help the neighbors" meeting is at Influx Bakery between 9-11am. Join us to help out, geek out, or just drink coffee, eat muffins etc. The addresss is: 1948 Broadway, Golden Hill Map and directions to Influx

This Sunday, 11 Feb, there is an installation day at San Martin de Porres housing at 9119 Jamacha Rd, 91977 starting around 10am. Please bring standard hand tools and work clothes.

Images are from a trial installation we did yesterday.

On the rooftop of a large, pink apartment building in Golden Hill -- known as the "pink palace" -- SoCalFreeNet.org rigged up its first network node in August 2003; an antenna that would give the tenants free wireless Internet access.

The San Diego Business Journal wrote a nice article about our work recently. Check it out .

Recently we've been doing a lot of overdue work on our networks. This is the first in a series of articles detailing some of the changes, including some real world experience with exciting new products (like meraki).

This article is about pfSense and its wireless capabilities on a PCEngines Wrap board. In brief, its excellent! So far! Read on to get the full scoop.

Yes, OB's new node on channel 11 is up!!! :) Check it out!

The only hardware problem was a bad pci slot in the m0n0 box, which prevented the box from booting when it was used, so i moved one of the ethernet cards to a differnet slot, and the box was fine.

Software: thank God for chapter 6 in socalfreenet's "Wireless Hacking" book.
Thanks Michael Mee - if not for your clear step-by step instructions i would've
NEVER been able to configure m0n0 so easily! :)

still to do: 1. get the antenna up on its mast. still havent received the
lightning arrestor yet.
2. setup the captive portal

We had some more rooftime updating the solar powered C St and 23rd location that is quite popular. It was the last in a series of nodes that required a hardware update (new radio) to work around a bug that's prevalent in many laptops (the so-called 'sleep mode' bug) and causes the access point to hang. This required frequent reboots.

Anyhow, geek details aside, this location is back up and good as new, powered, as always just by sunshine. And it should now stay up much more consistently. Enjoy!

We've recently been upgrading and repairing parts of the network.

One of the original nodes, at Broadway 26th towards C St is now back online better than ever. Please give it a try and let us know.

Coming back soon is 27th and Broadway...