Frequently Asked Questions - general FAQ

Named after Daihinia brevipes -- a species of crickets, also known as camel cricket. Network packets hop over a Daihinia™ network much like these creatures jump.

See also: image on insectimages.org

When you connect to an Access Point, your computer communicates only with the Access Point. Even if you send data to another computer in the same WiFi network, data travels to the AP first, then the AP repeats it in the air for the target machine. That mode is called Infrastructure Mode. All participants in the network should be in the range of the AP, and the whole network fails if the AP goes wrong.

On the other hand, there is Ad-Hoc Mode (also called IBSS), when all computers in that network are peers with equal rights, and send data directly to each other. Daihinia adds a bit of smartness to this mode by relaying packets from one computer to another computer by using a computer in the middle, but only in those cases when such a relaying is absolutely needed, i.e. when the first two computers are out of range for each other.

About the same day when Youtube will come to film you. :)

Seriously, there are 198 Daihinia networks that were set up without any of our presence during the past 30 days, consisting of at least 524 computers (live data according to the update check requests).

No, it does not replace your adapter's driver. It works on top of the existing driver, transparently adding the mesh network functionality when your adapter is connected to an Ad-Hoc SSID prefixed "Daihinia".

The resulting Daihinia network is Multihop Ad-Hoc, and all computers in that network appear to protocols (such as TCP/IP) as if they are in the same Ethernet segment. Even if packets are traversing several physical hops, all networking utilities (such as traceroute) will report you only one hop inside such a network.

All adapters capable of Ad-Hoc (IBSS) Mode are supported.

Devices do not allow apps to modify/improve their networking logic. Also, handling transit WiFi traffic on a handheld device would suck its battery in minutes, which renders the whole thing useless.

Apart from that, those devices' wifi chip microcode usually don't support IBSS mode at all; they are very stripped-down versions and don't have that logic in principle. Exceptions are so sparse that you can't hope for a wifi mesh net with them.

You have to install and configure the Daihinia driver in order to access the traffic in that network.

However, it might turn out that your meshing neighborhood is a local-only network and does not have access to the Internet at all; it may be created for some local purpose. Please ask your neighbors for details. You cannot dream of a neighborhood mesh network if you don't even say hello to your neighbors. ;)

1. Install the driver for your WiFi adapter, as you would normally do (skip this step if already installed).
2. Make sure your adapter works in Ad-Hoc mode (most adapters do).
3. Download and install the Daihinia package, it will start the Control Application automatically after installation.
   
4. Press Proceed Automatically from the Control Application.
   
   If you update from a previous version, it is sufficient to press the Proceed Automatically button. It will remove the old driver, install the new one, then prompt you to select the adapter. There is no need to create the Ad-Hoc network again.
5. When prompted to select the adapter, click on your WiFi adapter in the provided list, click OK.
   
6. Create the Ad-Hoc network prefixed "Daihinia" in the network name (SSID).
   Examples: "Daihinia" (for an open network), "Daihinia:Joe's-network" (for a private network). The default "Daihinia" SSID is reserved for open networks with no encryption that are available for anyone to join, and the "Daihinia:your-net-name" SSIDs for private/secured networks.
   
   Notes: 1. Multihop capabilities are turned on only when you are connected to networks with the prefix "Daihinia" in their names; other networks are connected as usual and Daihinia driver stays inactive. 2. You cannot use the traffic in a Daihinia network if you did not install Daihinia Driver yet.
7. If you created the network manually, make sure the security parameters are the same on all computers in the network, otherwise network partitioning will occur.
8. When you are connected to Daihinia network, all the computers in that network behave like they are in the same ethernet segment, no matter how many physical hops the network packets have to jump. Take this fact as a starting point when you configure other network protocols such as TCP/IP, and when you deploy your network applications.
9. Connect the network to Internet: see the FAQ topic How to connect my Daihinia network to Internet?