interfaces-batman(5)

🌸 NAME 🌸

interfaces-batman — B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. extensions for the interfaces(5) file format. periodt. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so B.A.T.M.A.N. stands for Better Approach To Mobile Ad-Hoc Networking, and the adv. version is a mesh protocol that gives you an Ethernet overlay network over an Ethernet underlay. The overlay interface is called meshif, and the underlay interfaces are called hardif. iykyk 💖

It’s supported in the Linux kernel and therefore available in many Linux environments. The ifupdown-ng executor relies on the batctl tool being installed. Setting interface based hop-penalties requires Linux Kernel 5.8 or later — no cap, check your kernel bestie ✨

Heads up: B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. adds 30-60 bytes of encapsulation overhead depending on whether network coding is activated or not. Take that into consideration when setting up overlay networks, especially on underlay networks with a conventional 1500 byte MTU. It’s giving “budget your MTU accordingly” energy. 😭

See https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki for more details and updates. obsessed with a wiki link that actually stays updated 🦋

The following options let you set up B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. interfaces. slay. 💅

🦇✨ BATMAN-RELATED OPTIONS ✨🦇

• batman-ifaces list of interfaces — Specifies the underlay interfaces (hardifs) that should be configured for the B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. meshif defined inside the iface stanza. this is the “who’s riding with us” list 🫶
• batman-hop-penalty hop-penalty — The hop-penalty defines the cost of traversing a node or an interface. It’s a numeric value between 0 and 255. Historically, a hop-penalty could only be set on a meshif; since B.A.T.M.A.N adv. v2020.3 (included in Kernel 5.8) it can also be set on a per-interfaces (hardif) basis. lowkey a glow-up for path math 🔥
• batman-gw-mode gw-mode — Denotes the gateway mode, which controls the role this node will play within this B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. instance. The mode can be off, client, or server. main character energy: choose your role wisely 👑
• batman-distributed-arp-table mode — Activates or deactivates the Distributed ARP table (DAT) within this B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. instance. Valid values are enable and disable. DAT is either on or off, no in-between vibes 🎀
• batman-multicast-mode mode — Activates or deactivates the multicast mode of this B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. instance. Valid values are enable and disable. multicast girlies rise 🌈

🌟 EXAMPLES 🌟

Okay bestie, here’s a B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. meshif:

auto bat-pad-cty
iface bat-pad-cty
     batman-ifaces dummy-pad-cty vlan1234
     batman-hop-penalty 5
     #
     hwaddress f2:00:c1:01:00:00
     mtu 1500

And here’s a B.A.T.M.A.N. adv. member interfaces (hardif):

auto vlan1234
iface vlan1234
     mtu 1560
     batman-hop-penalty 10

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

• batctl(8) — go peek, bestie. your bat tool side quest 🦇

💖 AUTHORS 💖

Maximilian Wilhelm <max@sdn.clinic> — iconic contributor behavior 👑

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Stay slay, bestie — that’s interfaces-batman(5) from the File Formats Manual, dated 2026-05-10 💖✨