FAQ - Kerlink Gateway

Gateways Kerlink Gateways
1

#Kerlink

I have a Kerlink Gateway, how do I tune in with The Things Network?

For instructions read our getting started manual on our wiki.

###Starting the package forwarder: ERROR: [main] failed to start the concentrator
There are multiple software versions but every now en then following error occurs:

ERROR: [main] failed to start the concentrator

Sometimes it throws out this error. Please try starting the software a couple of times.

###Something went wrong, the Kerlink is not accessible via SSH anymore.
Physical acces to the gateway is necessary.

  • If you have the WIRGRID debug-tool you still have acces. Try to solve
    the problem. No succes? Enter the following commands for factory
    reset.
    fw_setenv bootfail 100 reboot

  • If you don’t have the WIRGRID debug-tool you can force the Kerlink into Factory Reset mode.

  1. Power on the system
  2. Press and release the reset buton
  3. Wait between 4 and 10 seconds.
  4. Repeat point 2. and 3. 22 times!

How do I connect the WIRGRID debug tool?

Windows:

Open a serial terminal on PC (typically HyperTerminal application on Windows). Parameters:
baudrate : 115200 data length : 8 parity : none stop bit : 1 flow control : none

Linux & Mac:

Open terminal and enter the command:
screen /dev/tty.usb**** 115200

###I don’t want the gateway to connect in my local network. Are there other possibilities?
Yes! The Kerlink gateway has a build-in GPRS/3G modem. It uses a normal size simcard and is located at the top-right of the inner case. Please read these instructions for configuration.

###I have configured my Kerlink Gateway to use a mobile connection. But it doesn’t connect to the internet.
Check your APN settings with your provider. Some providers ask you to leave the username and password fields blank, the gateway cannot cope with that. Kerlink send us a patch for this bug. More info here. Still no luck: ask @Fokko and don’t hesitate to contact Kerlink.

###I followed all the instructions and my gateway is ready-to-go, where can I find the data its receiving?
There now is a Rest API to show receive date of the gateways.

There is a temporary webinterface where all the packages should end up:
http://croft.thethings.girovito.nl:8083/
gateway status messages: “select * from gateway_status where time > now() - 5m”
packages: “select * from rx_packets where time > now() - 1h”

:v:

1 Like
2

I have a Kerlink gateway operational (EUI: 0000024B080602ED), and it is forwarding packets to TTN (actually duplicating to myself, TTN, and Semtech). The gateway_status updates show all up in the database, but only a fraction of the received packets shows up in rx_packets. Any reason for that?

Thomas

3

Are you using the poly_packetforwarder allready?

You can start a packages logger and lookup everything its receiving. The package logger is included with the test application bundle.

4

No, just duplicating the UDP on an intermediate machine. The other receivers seem to be fine with it, and are processing all the packets. It’s just that on the TTN server only very few packets are logged.

5

@johan can you help debugging?

6

This is not how it should be, can you post the query you are using here?

7

select * from rx_packets where gateway_eui=‘0000024B080602ED’

The server is acknowledging them, but they don’t show up in the database (except a few).

8

Add info about error:

ERROR: [main] failed to start the concentrator

There now is a Rest API to show receive date of the gateways.

9

I have been talking to Yann Bauduin at Kerlink and he suggests that if we are using a Kerlink LoRaIOT station then we should also purchase a debug probe. Has anyone else need one of these or do people think that it is unnecessary considering the needs of The Things Network?

Cheers

Julian

10

Hi Julian,

I have been running one for a while without the probe, and did not have a need for it (yet!).

But it might be convenient just to have once, in case.

Expensive?

cheers,
Thomas

11

They are €214 then there is shipping on top of that. So not too expensive.
Do you or has anyone else been talking to Kerlink. The price for the gateway I have been offered is €1,200. I get a sense that LoRa is something they aren’t really committed to as the tech is a little old and it is the only LoRa solution in their product range. This might just me putting 2 + 2 = 9 together.

J

12

We @amsterdam have one. Only used it when we locked ourselves out by breaking the ssh server. Real handy for hard resetting the system, but not really necessary. It’s just a serial terminal.

13

How many Kerlink gateways are there in the Amsterdam network? I know they have one at Waag

14

An expensive serial cable though.

15

Hi Julian,

See http://www.ttnstatus.org/

16

Not sure if there is another thread on this. Do you know if it is possible to change the port configuration in dropbear? Tried do it with vi last night but couldn’t seem to change it. We need to get around a blocked ssh problem

17

So you edited the dropbear config file and it didn’t work?

18

I have just bougth a Kerlink to setup in Rotterdam. I was wondering if anybody already used the 3G option and if there is any indication how much data is needed to let this Gateway run for a month. Off course it depends on sensors in the feeld, but I was wondering how much data is used beside sensor data.

19

Yes. We tried to change the port from 22 as the network that its on would of left the gateway vulnerable

20

And just to build on this - there was a good reason to. If you’re hosting one of these behind a domestic network connection (in the UK, at least), there’s a very high likelihood that you’re using a modem that will let you port forward, and port trigger, but not at the same time. We decided the best workaround was to set dropbear to listen on a non-standard port, so we can implement straight port forwarding only on the modem side (there’s also a slightly reduced chance of script kiddies and Shodan showing up).

We saw in /etc/init.d/dropbear that it starts up dropbear as a daemon, but adding the -p XXXX flag to specify a port number was just ignored. A little duckduckgoing suggested dropbear can listen on alternative (and multiple) ports, but couldn’t find a huge amount of relevant information. Quite possibly, I’m doing something stupid and am just not familiar enough with the distribution running on the Kerlink box, but I suspect that this is something that will come up again, hence the query here!