Beyond Wiana

Did ever want Wiana to be a local server? Yeah me too. Unfortunately I do not have the time to re-engineer the server. The next best thing is to create a server that you can run your MeshAP from. Locustworld's OS does not give you the ability to save your changes or customization to the MeshAP. What it does reset all the setting after a reboot and then configures them as per Wiana. In other words Wiana feed the configuration file into the MeshAP and the file is used to configure the MeshAP.

When you want to automate a task in the MeshAP like reboot everyday at a certain time the crontab does not give you the ability to save your setting after the reboot. It becomes a pain to constant add it back in manually.

The solution has always been to have a Linux server between the router of the uplink node and the uplink Mesh Node. This gives you the ability to control the and customize each MeshAP.

The Linux server can SSH into each one of the meshap and perform the same actions. As a result centralizing the automation becomes a true reality.

Susanna Dorr wrote a script to simply reboot the MeshAP's using the above method:

1. Get the mesh set up in the server routing table so the server can talk to every node.
For example, my subnet is 123.123.123.nnn, with my base node radio set with a static ip of 123.123.123.100.
So in my rc.local file, I have a routing table entry for each of my remote nodes -- e.g.,
route add -host 172.16.130.2 gw 123.123.123.100 [130 is the CELLIP of this node]
route add -host 172.16.160.2 gw 123.123.123.100 [160 is the CELLIP of this node]
etc.
2. Get /root/.ssh/authorized_keys and known_hosts set up on the server and the radios for passwordless authentication -- so that the server can ssh to the nodes without passwords. This is done the way you'd do it for any pair of linux boxes. I have mine set so that the server can passwordlessly ssh to each node, but not vice versa. In brief, this involves loading the server's public key into /etc/.ssh/authorized_keys on the radio. It also involves changing a setting in the radio's /etc/ssh/sshd_config file: this line must be uncommented and set to no -- StrictModes no.

3. Create a shell script to reboot each node from the outside of the mesh in. For example,
ssh root@172.16.130.2 reboot
ssh root@172.16.160.2 reboot
. . .
ssh root@123.123.123.100 reboot [ base node last ]

4. Call the shell script at whatever interval in the /etc/crontab file.

As you can see automation then becomes simple. I believe that anyone that wants to make a carrier grade meshap will need the additional equipment other than WIANA.