Configure mLinux model

mLinux is an open source embedded Linux distribution for the MultiConnect Conduit and is the next generation version of CoreCDP.

Prepare USB stick #

Find a USB stick and add the file installer.sh to it. If the USB is not recognized by the Conduit, please check whether it is FAT or FAT32 formatted

Connect #

Wait to connect the power of the Conduit until we say so. ☝️

Remove the panel with the MultiTech logo from the front of the Conduit by remove the single screw to the left of the logo.
Use a Micro-USB cable between the connector you just uncovered and your computer.
Insert the USB stick to USB port on the back of the conduit.

Windows #

Use Windows Device Manager to look up the COM* for the Conduit, identified by * USB UART:

USB UART

Start PuTTY, set the Connection type to: Serial, enter the COM port you found and set the Speed to 115200:

PuTTY Configuration

Mac OS / Linux #

Run the following command in terminal to look up the USB connection:

ls /dev/tty.usb*

If that doesn’t work, try this instead and look for the value of IOSerialCalloutDevice.

ioreg -c IOSerialBSDClient  | grep usb

Now connect to the USB device using 115200 for speed. For example:

screen /dev/cu.usbserial 115200

Connect the Conduit’s power cable. You will now see its boot messages. Wait for the login prompt to appear:

The default credentials are:

Username: root
Password: root

Copy installer #

To get the installer we need mount the USB drive:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Copy the installer to the conduit:

cp /mnt/installer* /home/root

Tell Linux to release the USB drive:

umount /mnt

During the download to the USB stick the installer.sh file might have been renamed to installer.txt or installer.sh.txt. If that happened, just use installer.txt or installer.sh.txt whenever the instructions say installer.sh.

Network Setup #

Start the installer:

sh installer.sh

The installer will prompt you for information it requires to configure the Conduit:

A new password to secure access to the conduit.
Your time zone.
Network Setup.

installer

Once it is done, hit the enter button to shutdown and wait for the led to stop blinking.

Reconnect #

Once the led has stopped blinking you can remove the power cable, USB drive, the Micro-USB cable and replace the front panel.

Now use an ethernet cable to connect the Conduit to the target network and reconnect the power cable. Wait for the conduit to finish booting (the heartbeat led starts blinking), connect a computer to the same network and login to the Conduit.

If you have not configured your Conduit with a static IP, you will have to find out which IP the DHCP assigned to it. You can also find the IP address by reconnecting the Conduit with the Micro-USB Cable. Log in with your Username and Password and type ifconfig. Look for eth0. The number that comes after inet addr is the IP address.

For Windows use a terminal program like Putty to connect to <IP>:

You will get a security alert concerning the host key. Accept the new key with Yes.
For Linux/OSX open terminal and connect via ssh <IP>.

TTN Configuration #

Now restart the installer and provide the required answers when prompted:

sh installer.sh

installer

The installation is complete once the Starting ttn-packet-forwarder: OK message appears.

Check the output of the packet forwarder for any errors:

tail /var/log/lora-pkt-fwd.log

The installation was successful if the output looks something like:

##### 2016-08-06 23:19:11 GMT #####
### [UPSTREAM] ###
# RF packets received by concentrator: 1
# CRC_OK: 100.00%, CRC_FAIL: 0.00%, NO_CRC: 0.00%
# RF packets forwarded: 1 (19 bytes)
# PUSH_DATA datagrams sent: 2 (461 bytes)
# PUSH_DATA acknowledged: 100.00%
### [DOWNSTREAM] ###
# PULL_DATA sent: 3 (100.00% acknowledged)
# PULL_RESP(onse) datagrams received: 0 (0 bytes)
# RF packets sent to concentrator: 0 (0 bytes)
# TX errors: 0
##### END #####
INFO: [up] PUSH_ACK for server router.eu.thethings.network received in 13 ms
INFO: [down] for server router.eu.thethings.network PULL_ACK received in 13 ms

Warning: