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6LBR is an enhanced version of Contiki's 6LoWPAN Border Router solution. Compared to existing border router solutions, 6LBR is the only stand-alone router which doesn't require a Linux host for routing while smartly interconnecting IPv6/NDP mechanisms and RPL.
6LBR is deployment-ready for industrial use-cases; you don't need to be a Contiki expert to get started with it. It runs out-of-the-box on low-cost and open hardware platforms:
- The RaspberryPi coupled with a Nooliberry daughter board by NooliTIC.
- The Redwire IO embedded router
- The Redwire Econotag with an attached ethernet chip.
- The TI CC2538DK with an attached ethernet chip.
- The OpenMote platform with an OpenBase (available on the develop branch).
- Any other Linux host with ethernet and USB interfaces, coupled with a USB mote running the Slip-Radio Contiki application.
For a concise overview of 6LBR see,
- the Supported Hardware page
- a short feature-list: 6LBR in a Nutshell
Latest release : 6LBR version 1.3.2 (Septembre 2014)
Develop branch : Stable (25/02/2015)
Contiki merge branch : N/A
The purpose of the 6LBR is to interconnect a WSN network, based on 802.15.4 and 6LoWPAN, with an existing IPv6 network, based on Ethernet. This connection can be done at several levels of the network stack:
- At the link layer (layer 2), we usually speak of bridge or switch equipment
- At the network layer (layer 3), we usually speak of router
- At the application layer (layer 7), we usually speak of gateway
One should keep in mind that this OSI classification is fairly academic and not really sensible; modern equipment takes into accounts several layers in order to perform efficient network interconnection. The CETIC 6LBR uses layer 2 (Ethernet and 802.15.4), layer 3 (IPv6/6LowPAN) and "layer 4" (ICMPv6/RPL) to switch and route packets.
The CETIC 6LBR can act as a Bridge or as a Router. Each of these modes is more suitable in given situation than the others, please refer to the 6LBR Modes Documentation for more information.
6LBR is deployment-focused. We provide packages and installation instructions for several platforms:
These examples will guide you through your first steps with 6LBR. They require one of the supported border router platforms, and assume that you have already gone through the installation guide.
- Embedded Webserver Overview
- Configuration Parameters
- Future Work
- Frequently Asked Questions & Troubleshooting Guide
- Article en français [FR]
- Laurent Deru, Sébastien Dawans, Mathieu Ocaña, Bruno Quoitin and Olivier Bonaventure. Redundant Border Routers for Mission-Critical 6LoWPAN Networks, in the Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Real-World Wireless Sensor Networks, September 2013.
6LBR is based on previous work:
- The Contiki Native Border Router solution forms the basis of 6LBR
- The ENC28J60 code is derived from the Microchip example code and Maciej Wasilak's Grinch Border Router
- The code handling RIO emissions is also derived from the Grinch Border Router source code
- Maxime Denis from UMons contributed to 6LBR during his internship at CETIC.
- Kiril Petrov provided the updated ENC28J60 driver for cc2538 based on Thinksquare ENC28J60 driver
All source code provided in 6LBR is released under the same licence as Contiki: a permissive 3-clause BSD-style open source license. Any part of 6LBR can be freely reused in a commercial or non-commercial application, provided that the copywright header in the source code is preserved. It does not impose any specific type of licence on your own code.
- 6lbr has a dedicated Mailing List, 6lbr-dev for general discussions and questions around 6LBR and its development.
- Code-related comments and bug reports can be submitted in the 6lbr issue tracker on Github
- We welcome Github pull requests if you would like to contribute to the project. Project maintainers are Laurent Deru, Sébastien Dawans and Mathieu Ocaña. Drop us a private email