11.12. STRIP support (Starmode Radio IP)

STRIP device names are `st0', `st1', etc.

Kernel Compile Options:

Network device support ---> [*] Network device support .... [*] Radio network interfaces < > STRIP (Metricom starmode radio IP)

STRIP is a protocol designed specifically for a range of Metricom radio modems for a research project being conducted by Stanford University called the MosquitoNet Project. There is a lot of interesting reading here, even if you aren't directly interested in the project.

The Metricom radios connect to a serial port, employ spread spectrum technology and are typically capable of about 100kbps. Information on the Metricom radios is available from the: Metricom Web Server.

At present the standard network tools and utilities do not support the STRIP driver, so you will have to download some customized tools from the MosquitoNet web server. Details on what software you need is available at the: MosquitoNet STRIP Page.

A summary of configuration is that you use a modified slattach program to set the line discipline of a serial tty device to STRIP and then configure the resulting `st[0-9]' device as you would for ethernet with one important exception, for technical reasons STRIP does not support the ARP protocol, so you must manually configure the ARP entries for each of the hosts on your subnet. This shouldn't prove too onerous.