Afrimesh Code Sprint

A code sprint event is planned to work on the Afrimesh initiative, supported by Meraka Institute. Afrimesh is the name given to the wireless-isp-in-a-box development used by a number of Meraka projects, including the IDRC Wireless-Africa project, the VillageTelco collaboration with Shuttleworth Foundation and the Broadband for All project.

A dual benefit is introduced through code-sprints: Participants have the opportunity to increase their skill levels under the guidance of an expert while needed functionality is added to the open source project.

For the Afrimesh code sprint, there are defined tasks that each require applicants to work on.

Task 1

Key responsibility

Write scripts to generate http://openstreetmap.org tiles for the Afrimesh map view given, as input, a latitude, longitude and coverage distance

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems.
• Programming skills in Python at a beginner level

Task 2

Key responsibility

Modify source code or write plugins for network management tools to generate JSON output (NAGios, PMACCT, etc.)

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems.
• Programming skills in Javascript and C at an intermediate level.

Task 3

Key responsibility

Brainstorm, implement and test a set of parametrised network traffic control scripts to cover common wireless/mesh networking use cases.

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems.
• Scripting skills to work on iptables, tc, ipp2p, layer7-filter at an advanced level.

Task 4

Key responsibility

Security evaluation – examine the codebase and, with the help of a selection of on-line security references, perform an audit of implementation details or design decisions that create potential security problems. Make recommendations on how to fix these problems.

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems.
• Advanced analysis skills in C, Javascript, critical reasoning skills, communication skills
• At least some knowledge of web and network security issues would be helpful

Task 5

Key responsibility

Develop a set of queries that can be run against a freeradius database which answers the ten common billing-related questions

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems
• Intermediate scripting skills in SQL/MySQL

Task 6

Key responsibility

Write a memcachedb backend for freeradius

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems.
• Advanced programming skills in Javascript and XML

Task 7

Key responsibility

Add a Google Earth export and import to the Afrimesh map view

Qualifications, skills and experience

• Past or present education in any of field of Engineering OR Computer Science OR Computer Engineering OR Information systems.
• Beginner programming skills in Javascript and XML

Afrimesh Code sprint event details:

• Venue: Pretoria campus of CSIR, Meiring Naude Drive, Brummeria, Pretoria, Guateng
• Period: Mid-year vacation break of a maximum of 4 weeks (full-time)
• Travel: Provided and paid for by project budget
• Accommodation: Provided and paid for by project budget
• Remuneration: Daily rate (maximum 20 days)

Application procedure:

1. Complete this template thoroughly
2. Follow this link to the application page
3. Fill in the relevant details and attach the completed template
4. Send the application through and await feedback