[Bug]: Misconfiguration as ROUTER breaks whole mesh

[euronautic]

Category

Other

Hardware

Not Applicable

Is this bug report about any UI component firmware like InkHUD or Meshtatic UI (MUI)?

• Meshtastic UI aka MUI colorTFT
• InkHUD ePaper
• OLED slide UI on any display

Firmware Version

2.6.11

Description

A single node configured incorrectly or maliciously as a ROUTER destroys the entire mesh. The messages of all nodes in the vicinity are lost in this sink. We need a solution so that a mesh is not destroyed by the misbehavior of individuals.

Relevant log output

[shalberd]

Agreed, the agressive behavior of router, combined with the poor naming of Client, is a big problem when there is no way to

• count on the goodwill and coordination of others
• get feedback from other users

@GUVWAF @thebentern FYI

[FabianRig]

We're experiencing this exact problem in our town! The town's topography is entirely flat and there is a node on a rooftop which is configured as ROUTER. If you have a line of sight, fine. If you don't, you're out of luck. The node shouldn't be a ROUTER but the owner doesn't care and doesn't change its configuration. It went down for a few days and the number of messages we could recieve skyrocketed. Now, it's back online and blocks a huge percentage of messages by transmitting as a ROUTER but only reaching very few CLIENTS directly -- which in turn will NOT retransmit.

It's a shame that the owner doesn't change the configuration. And this shows, that a malicious / ignorant participant can single-handedly sabotage a local mesh.

[shalberd]

@FabianRig try setting that node to "ignore". Don't worry about it getting cleaned out of the node DB, it will persist, just as favorites do, up to the limit of 80 on RAK4631, for example, so the ignore behavior of that rogue router node on your device will be permanent.
In any case, setting that router node to "ignore" on all your clients, client_mute, router_late will enable you to get out better and also keep packets from that rogue node from being forwarded via your devices.
That should stabilize the situation, though the general problem is router and its naming ...

[Ryu945]

I think this idea would solve this issue but I need to work out the details of what passive information nodes share already and what is the minimum new information that would be needed to implement this idea.

#8257