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firmware-ng FAQ

If your question is not answered in the FAQ feel free to open a ticket.

How to login using SSH ?

Each node comes with an active SSH server that allows you to login into your nodes using the root password you configured on the dashboard. However, due to the bridged nature of firmware-ng you can only connect to one of your gateways (via the IP address it received from your DHCP server). Once on your gateway you can connect to any node in the network by either using the 5.x.x.x addresses shown on the dashboard or the node names you configured:

ssh root@5.x.x.x

ssh root@my_node_name

Note: Some characters are not allowed to be used in node names and have to be mangled, therefore the node names might differ. In case you experience difficulties consult the '/etc/hosts/' file.

Beware: It won't be possible to SSH into a node on SSID#1 if chilli is active or SSID#2 if bridge mode is active.

How to force a dashboard checkin from the commandline ?

Run:

dashboard checkin

How to configure my firewall to allow the nodes to operate ?

Each node needs to connect to the dashboard (HTTP - port 80) to send its check in data:

checkin.cloudtrax.com - 50.17.245.251

and connects to our packages/images server (HTTP - port 80) to retrieve software packages and the latest firmware-ng versions (automatic upgrade):

dev.cloudtrax.com - 204.236.231.29

I have unchecked 'disable upgrades' and a new firmware version is out, still my network does not upgrade ?

In order to avoid orphaned nodes the dashboard won't start the upgrade as long as not all nodes in your network are online. Bring all nodes online or remove offline nodes from your network to start the upgrade.

How does the internet availability check work ?

The preferred way of checking for internet availability is a UDP based traceroute to the the following IP addresses (in a random manner):

 * 198.41.0.4
 * 192.33.4.12
 * 128.8.10.90
 * 192.5.5.241
 * 192.36.148.17
 * 192.58.128.30
 * 193.0.14.129
 * 198.32.64.12
 * 202.12.27.33

However, if neither of these IPs can't be reached via traceroute firmware-ng will try a HTTP based "ping" to the following URLs:

 * google.com
 * yahoo.com
 * alltheweb.com

If that also fails firmware-ng will try to download a page from checkin.cloudtrax.com as a last resort.

What is the 'lonely mode' good for ?

If 4 internet checks in a row fail, the node will fallback into 'lonely mode'. The node assumes that it operates on a wrong WiFi channel (the channel might have been changed). In lonely mode the node scans through all channels in the hope to find internet somewhere else. Scanning all channels takes roughly 5-6 minutes.

Note: In this mode normal WiFi operations (SSID#1 / SSID#2) are disabled otherwise the node would not be able to scan & switch channels.

How does the custom.sh feature work ?

Fill the "custom.sh" field (under Advanced) with the URL (domain + folder) which contains your "custom.sh" script including the trailing slash. For example:

http://www.mydomain.com/subfolder/

The firmware will download the "custom.sh" file from that location each time the dashboard sends a full configuration reply to the device (mainly happens when the 'update network settings' button is pushed). Then its md5 checksum is compared with the previously executed custom.sh file. If the md5 checksum mismatch (the custom.sh has been altered) the custom.sh is executed otherwise it is not, thus ensuring each device executes the custom.sh file only once.

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