My GL-iNet B1300 (Convexa-B) works fine with the factory OpenWrt system, and behaved as per the documentation, but I cannot install AREDN because the firmware image is immediately rejected due to some kind of verification that it is doing*. Conveniently it reports the SHA of what it read which is exactly correct - so data corruption is not the reason.
So what am I supposed to do to make the firmware install?
* The instructions say "Verify that you uncheck the Keep Settings" but do not say where this option is to be found. I did not see this option anywhere before I started the download. Maybe it appears after the verification is passed?
So what am I supposed to do to make the firmware install?
* The instructions say "Verify that you uncheck the Keep Settings" but do not say where this option is to be found. I did not see this option anywhere before I started the download. Maybe it appears after the verification is passed?
That error usually indicates that it is the wrong file.
On the B1300 I used file: aredn-3.24.10.0-ipq40xx-generic-glinet_gl-b1300-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
On the MT1300 I used the file: aredn-3.24.10.0-ramips-mt7621-glinet_gl-mt1300-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
I would be very surprised to hear that they are the wrong files.
I get the impression from other sources that OpenWrt made itself incompatible with itself over firmware loading, so presumably there is a nightmare of update sequences required to fix it. This really needs to be in the installation notes and is disappointing that this was allowed to happen.
Not a great first impression for a new user!
https://docs.arednmesh.org/en/latest/arednHow-toGuides/beginner-guide.ht...
https://docs.arednmesh.org/en/latest/arednHow-toGuides/beginner-guide.ht...
Indoor devices:
For home:
The Mikrotik RB952Ui A.K.A. hAP-ac-lite ($) is a good choice for a home indoor device to connect a workstation
or services to a home AREDN network.
The RBD52 a.k.a. hAP-ac2 ($$) is a better choice for a home indoor device to connect a workstation
or services to a home AREDN network.
The RBD53 a.k.a. hAP-ac3 ($$$) is a great choice for a home indoor device to connect a workstation
or services to a home AREDN network.
For portable:
The Gl-iNet:
AR150, AR300M16, and AR750 are good choices for portable indoor devices.
Please describe your local AREDN environment and your intentions for AREDN networking.
73, Chuck
I upgraded using the manufacturers own latest system which worked OK.
I was then able to make it upgrade to AREDN which it complained about but worked.
Then I lost contact and had trouble getting it started. Not sure what this is about, and am not sure just what it takes to get it restarted - some messing about with power and reset button etc. Eventually it burst into life but the DHCP did not work.
I had to reboot the PC to get DHCP working so eventually I got the new home page, which I did not like because it does not fit on the screen as well as the old one, and in live use the screen will be much smaller.
QUESTION: The TIME setup gave me all the options I might want EXCEPT setting the actual time. How am I supposed to do that? It seems to have great expectations of exotic time servers or GPS that might do it - but in my real use I will want to tell it the time and have it serve that itself.
We would expect to be able to use networks in isolation from the public Internet.
BTW My PC did not want to use the AREDN WiFi connection due to poor security it claimed. I hope that is just a configuration issue or else might be a problem.
Now I will have a go at the other one before risking the more complicated-looking Ubiquiti beams I have.
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So I am looking at options for high-speed data for use by RAYNET-UK. Due to various groups either investigating options or using different systems I was wanting to see how interoperable different systems might be and maybe even get a consensus on what would be good. Our group controller has an older AREDN demo setup and I have another GL-iNet device with OpenWrt on it but which seems to have dropped out of favour with AREDN in spite of having lots of RAM.
I chose the GL-iNet devices because they happened to be available cheaply and had the most RAM and I had used one before, and according to your notes they should have been the easiest to get working.
Even with the manufacturer's upgrade the AREDN firmware is still rejected.
It says its version is 4.0.0 which is less than the MT1300 version.
ANSWER: I assume that, initially, you might set the 'NTP Server' to 'uk.pool.ntp.org'.
Then select 'Continually' in the drop down selection.
After the time is corrected, select Hourly or Daily.
You may need to do this after a cold boot.
Since you only have portable devices, I anticipate that there will often be
cold boots after lengthy periods of no operation.
"expectations of exotic time servers"
My 'exotic time server' is a Raspberry Pi 3B, with internet access, running a ntp service, connected to my local AREDN LAN and sharing its service.
This RPi was already a HTTP, MariaDB, and PHP server, so I just added ntpd to its services.
Hopefully, sooner or later, at least one node or host in your local AREDN LAN can function as a ntp service.
I assume that one can install and configure ntpd on an AREDN node and share that service.
"We would expect to be able to use networks in isolation from the public Internet."
Are we still talking 'TIME' or is this a new theme?
Sharing internet access with the entire local AREDN LAN is not, by default, intended, desired, or necessary.
However, it is normal and likely that an individual node might have access to the internet for its own purposes.
"I am looking at options for high-speed data for use by RAYNET-UK"
I suggest that you post in 'https://www.arednmesh.org/forums/united-kingdom' or a RAYNET.UK forum or email list.
"I have another GL-iNet device with OpenWrt on it but which seems to have dropped out of favour with AREDN in spite of having lots of RAM."
You are speaking of only (2) indoor portable devices.
Indoor portable devices are normally used to provide temporary user access to an existing AREDN network.
Indoor portable devices, IMHO, are not a valid choice to build, construct, or make a 'network' capable of transporting services.
"I chose the GL-iNet devices because they happened to be available cheaply and had the most RAM and I had used one before, and according to your notes they should have been the easiest to get working."
uh, yeah, but maybe not the *1300 ones.
I love my USB150, AR150, AR300M16, and AR750 for portable/remote access to my home AREDN network.
Our local AREDN network has about 20 outdoor Mikrotik or Ubiquiti devices utilizing
Dish or Panel style antennas and services parts of 4 counties.
I hope this helps, Chuck
in my real use I will want to tell it the time and have it serve that itself.
If you search on the forum you can find quite a lot about the time shown by the node. In reality, as AREDN is designed to serve HTTP services the time really does not matter, but it is nice to have correct. Time is not stored in non volitile memory so the device has to find system time with every power cycle. We have several time servers on our network to chose from or there is internet sometimes availabe. In the long run doesn't actually matter as your services will run on the clock and time of the pc on the LAN provided by the node.We would expect to be able to use networks in isolation from the public Internet.
Yep. That's the point of AREDN.
BTW My PC did not want to use the AREDN WiFi connection due to poor security it claimed. I hope that is just a configuration issue or else might be a problem.
I see you're in the UK. I don't know anything about the rules for amatuer radio in the UK. In the US we are not allowed to encrypt communications sent over the air by us amatuers, so AREDN has been constructed to only allow HTTP and not HTTPS. All you do is instruct your browser to accept HTTP and away you go. Yes, it is less secure. However not every Tom Dick and Harry are supposed to be on a closed amatuer radio operated data network. You choose to join or not to join knowing these limitations. If this is not acceptable to you, and if you are allowed to encrypt, perhaps you should look at another system than AREDN.
I was wanting to see how interoperable different systems might be
AREDN is NOT an interoperable system. It is a stand alone backup system for use when internet and other coms fail. It is not substitue or backup internet access. There are some exceptions but pretty much it does it's own thing and ignores all other data networks. Tunnels are just a VPN to get connected over internet where there are no rf links available. But the traffic is not internet compatible ...
AREDN is quirky and strange at times. However, it does work pretty well when you stop fighting it's strange quirks and go with it. Chuck's comments about your starting with Gl-iNET devices are spot on. You could not have picked more inappropriate things for a first node to test with. I suggest get something easy to use like a pair of Nanostation or a CPE-510 (stick with 5ghz) and put them a block or two away pointing at each other and learn with normal kit. AREDN firmware is written to run just fine with 64 or 128 Mb memory, all the device is doing is being a router at most ... so long as the device is not sunset it will be fine with less memory.
Cheers, Ed
> In the US we are not allowed to encrypt communications sent over the air by us amatuers, so AREDN has been constructed to only allow HTTP and not HTTPS
The UK rules are much the same but there are some exceptions. In an emergency situation UK amateurs can carry messages for certain specified organisations and use encryption, and this may be required . There is also a general requirement to have secure access to remote unattended equipment, which might preclude using the old and weak WiFi (which I seem to remember is hackable by modern fast equipment so quickly that it is barely worth asking for the password).
QUESTION: If you had a gateway to an alien network on an AREDN mesh, does the AREDN routing system effectively make it impossible to use it, even if a client node knew the AREDN IP address of the gateway? If it can reach it, can the AREDN DHCP be configured so the client doesn't have to know where the gateway is? I can now see why this might be hard.
On the original topic: I have logged the B1300 problem on Github. There is no software bug to fix I think, I am guessing that it just needs someone to rebuild the B1300 firmware. I will test it for you when done. As it stands it appears that the B1300 is effectively not supported hardware.
Can I also suggest that you add a "star rating" to the hardware support table because there is nothing I saw that says that my choice of using these devices was a bad idea (they are not for long range use, just expanding local Wifi coverage).
In the USA, encrypted communications are prohibited.
IMHO, encrypted authentication is not prohibited.
Part 97.113 Prohibited transmissions.
...
(a)
...
(4)
...
messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning
...
"expanding local Wifi coverage"
A B1300 could expand the coverage inside a building or residence,
or, perhaps expand Wi-Fi coverage as far as 30 meters.
Of the B1300, I do not see a use case for it expanding Wi-Fi coverage between/among buildings or residences.
It depends on how one defines an area as 'local Wi-Fi coverage'.
73, Chuck
So back to the beginning. You had problems installing the firmware on a device. This happens now and then. The firmware is written and maintained by volunteers and there are alway new issues that crop up every time the device mfgs decide to change chips or firmware on their end. This forum is full of examples of things being reported, debated, and eventually solved.
What are you actually trying to do with AREDN anyway? If you want wifi coverage inside a building just use what we call part15 wifi devices and move the LAN traffic ... its not necessary to have AREDN to do this. You can go easily short distance building to building keeping factory firmware as well. AREDN exists because a section of the rules here allow licensed amatuer radio operators to operate in these frequency bands with higher power than consumers are allowed. So ... we can create a long(er) distance rf network for our em coms if we use the AREDN firmware. If you want to evaluate AREDN I urge you to look at an acutal outdoor rated device with some actual power and see what it can do.
At a location/station .... once the AREDN network has delivered traffic to a router, it can be passed locally as LAN via cable or part15 wifi so that part is fairly easy.
The other part of this is you started looking at the firmware right during a major update and ... stuff happens. So reporting the issues with your devices will help the developers. The devices I suggested for testing are not very expensive and are outdoor rated, then only take 10W power so you can rig up a few portable stations easily and try things out. Chuck, Orv, or one of the people who are better informed might tell you some folks near you who have AREDN working and might be a good local resource including some fixed locations you might be able to connect to with the right equipment. 73, Ed
The B1300 problem is clearly due to some past snafu with OpenWrt. I guess it just needs the .bin file to be recreated to fix it. I am happy to help test the result.
I have designed both hardware and software handling Ethernet traffic so I may know something of the packet level but am less familiar with the higher level protocols around these days (long ago and written in machine code on a DSP).
George.
You won't learn much by making a network from one corner of the room to the other as there will be nothing to use on your network of two devices, and you can do that with a cable. The Worldwide Mesh Map is not necessarily correct but it doesn't look like you have many people to connect to via rf in the UK but someone else can suggest ideas. My 2 cents.
Cheers, Ed
Ed