batman-adv: Add multicast-to-unicast support for multiple targets

With this patch multicast packets with a limited number of destinations
(current default: 16) will be split and transmitted by the originator as
individual unicast transmissions.

Wifi broadcasts with their low bitrate are still a costly undertaking.
In a mesh network this cost multiplies with the overall size of the mesh
network. Therefore using multiple unicast transmissions instead of
broadcast flooding is almost always less burdensome for the mesh
network.

The maximum amount of unicast packets can be configured via the newly
introduced multicast_fanout parameter. If this limit is exceeded
distribution will fall back to classic broadcast flooding.

The multicast-to-unicast conversion is performed on the initial
multicast sender node and counts on a final destination node, mesh-wide
basis (and not next hop, neighbor node basis).

Signed-off-by: Linus Lüssing <linus.luessing@c0d3.blue>
Signed-off-by: Sven Eckelmann <sven@narfation.org>
Signed-off-by: Simon Wunderlich <sw@simonwunderlich.de>

1 files changed, 6 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/net/batman-adv/types.h b/net/batman-adv/types.h
index e19fdb5c1281..357ca119329a 100644
--- a/net/batman-adv/types.h
+++ b/net/batman-adv/types.h
@@ -1553,6 +1553,12 @@ struct batadv_priv {
 	 *  node's sender/originating side
 	 */
 	atomic_t multicast_mode;
+
+	/**
+	 * @multicast_fanout: Maximum number of packet copies to generate for a
+	 *  multicast-to-unicast conversion
+	 */
+	atomic_t multicast_fanout;
 #endif
 
 	/** @orig_interval: OGM broadcast interval in milliseconds */