[Mesh] Flashing routers in bulk

[Mitar]

Hi!

>   2. A node-configurator daemon. Nodes look for this on the local network
> on first boot (actually every boot until they've been configured) and
> connect.

Network or Internet? Because you could have them connect over the
Internet as well. Then you can just give nodes around to people, they
connect them at home to their home network and voila, they get configured.

> Flashing used routers unfortunately means that we often have to use
> the TFTP method, since the settings have been changed from the
> defaults.

Restarting settings before flashing could fix this, no?

> We'll probably re-use parts of this to create the in-field update
> functionality. A lof ot our choices in the next few weeks hinge on whether
> or not we want to support devices with 4 MB of flash memory, since that
> would mean using squashfs which basically required us to reflash the
> devices for any non-trivial updates.

We are using 4 MB a lot, because those cheap TP-Links (WR741ND) have 4
MB. We can manage to get things in because we do not really run much on
the nodes. Kernel, routing protocol + VPN.

http://dev.wlan-si.net/wiki/Routers/TP-LINK/WR741ND

But we still flash always whole device. It has proven much better and
stable than trying to push just configuration. You get free firmware
upgrade as well, so things are much more predicable then old firmware
with new configuration. So we always flash completely.

>   2. The node will be down for minutes while it re-flashes.

Flashing statistically will not be a significant cause of nodes being
down, based on our experience. :-)

>> - entering your public IP of your home router you want to flash and some
>> server flashes the node for you over the Internet
> 
> Huh? Is this even possible? Is the web interface enabled on the
> public-facing side of ubiquiti nodes per default?

You probably have to check some box in admin interface for that, of course.


Mitar

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