Laird: Sentrius RG1XX

I received the Sentrius RG186 yesterday (obligatory unboxing pic https://twitter.com/jmarcelino/status/901087956638863360 )

I’m liking it do far, SUPER easy to connect to TTN, just open the web configuration page (mDNS is enabled) choose the TTN profile and away it goes. This is the easiest TTN gateway I’ve used.

It’s true that the plastic is not the strongest, attracts fingerprints like crazy, you only get an Europlug power supply, no UK plug or adapters for other countries and the SMA connectors are all RP-SMA (but all antennas are included).
Still it’s excellent value for $250 / €210.

Curiously there’s an extra covered antenna hole… umm I wonder what’s coming.

The radio setup screen is pretty neat

The only disappointment is that there’s no Linux shell, only the web interface, no SSH or telnet. Has anyone managed to enable it?

5 Likes

and what about BT … nothing in the menu ?

Bluetooth is there in the hardware but not enabled yet as far as I can see. One of the reasons I want shell access :slight_smile:

No VPN options either.

you’ll find it … :wink:

Just ordered one as well as I want to put the MP forwarder on it. If you find how to access it I’m very interrested :wink:

Gateways like the Cisco one or the Conduit (afaik) have the option of having two concentrator boards, each with their own antenna port. E.g. for use with multiple frequencies or high-gain directional antennas. Maybe this is reserved for something similar?

There’s an extra miniPCIe slot footprint right next to a SIM card footprint so it’s clear where they are going :slight_smile:

There’s also a GPS module footprint, looks like your usual u-blox module.

After a quick extraction of the (Torx T7) screws there is a populated header titled “WB DEBUG UART” which works nicely with at 3.3v Serial TTL levels.

And I have a login screen.

Of course the console login password is not the default (or the one set after installation) but I’m sure we’ll get there…

RomBOOT



AT91Bootstrap 3.7.1-laird08 (Wed Jun 29 22:35:41 EDT 2016)

NAND: ONFI flash detected
NAND: Manufacturer ID: 0x2c Chip ID: 0x31
NAND: Initialize PMECC params, cap: 0x8, sector: 0x200
NAND: Image: Copy 0x80000 bytes from 0x20000 to 0x23f00000
NAND: Done to load image


U-Boot 2014.07-laird04 (Jun 29 2016 - 22:35:50), Build: jenkins-wb50n-laird_fips-3.5.2.20-1

CPU: SAMA5D31
Crystal frequency:       12 MHz
CPU clock        :      528 MHz
Master clock     :      132 MHz
DRAM:  64 MiB
NAND:  128 MiB
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   macb0, usb_ether
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x5e0000, size 0x500000
 5242880 bytes read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 22000000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-4.4.39-laird07.02
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    2624457 Bytes = 2.5 MiB
   Load Address: 22000000
   Entry Point:  22000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0

[    0.000000] Linux version 4.4.39-laird07.02 (jenkins@USDEV01BD02) (gcc version 4.8.3 (crosstool-NG 1.20.0) ) #1 PREEMPT Tue Jun 27 07:06:42 EDT 2017

[    0.000000] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [410fc051] revision 1 (ARMv7), cr=10c53c7d

[    0.000000] CPU: PIPT / VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT aliasing instruction cache

[    0.000000] Machine model: Laird Workgroup Bridge 50N - Project Gatwick

[    0.000000] bootconsole [earlycon0] enabled

[    0.470000] atmel_sha f8034000.sha: initialization failed.

Initializing random number generator... done
Starting logging services: syslogd klogd
Looking for resetStarting network interfaces... lo eth0 wlan0
Populating /dev using udev: done
Checking platform... gatwick-laird-93.7.1.13
Starting USB host-mode
Starting ntpd: OK
Checking inetd services: http ...
Starting nbnsd services: done
Starting bluetooth - in background
Starting lora packet forwarder - in background
Starting input-event-daemon: input-event-daemon: open(/dev/input/event0): No such file or directory
done


Summit Data Communications

RG1xx login: 
3 Likes

Oh wow. Would not be Laird if there wasn’t a SmartBASIC interpreter on the gateway :slight_smile:

1 Like

LOL… that’s interesting

Root password not easy to find (at least for a dictionary attack) so I took another route via the update system and… we’re in. Next, enabling SSH.

#uname -a
Linux RG1xxXXXXXXX 4.4.39-laird07.02 #1 PREEMPT Tue Jun 27 07:06:42 EDT 2017 armv7l GNU/Linux

#cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
model name      : ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
BogoMIPS        : 351.43
Features        : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp vfpv3 vfpv3d16 tls vfpv4 
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0xc05
CPU revision    : 1

Hardware        : Atmel SAMA5
Revision        : 0000
Serial          : 0000000000000000

#cat /proc/meminfo | head -2
MemTotal:          59772 kB
MemFree:           17276 kB

Access without even unscrewing the case should be possible.

Note this is advanced stuff - e.g to run your own packet forwarder or a complex network configuration - for most cases the web configuration provided out of the box is all you need.

2 Likes

and SSH is working, can login straight to Laird RG868 root user via authorized_keys
Even picked up my IPv6 setup.

# who
root            pts/0           00:00   Aug 28 00:04:38  2a02:c7f:b421:c100:caa:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx

Happy days :slight_smile: I’ll look into publishing this somehow (tricky because I’m using files from Laird) but in the meantime feel free to reach out for more information.

2 Likes

Where can I find it in European store?

https://www.lairdtech.com/embedded-wireless-where-buy

Well apparently “someone” got the last 5 remaining units from Digikey :sunglasses:

It is a very nice unit actually, from early tests we’ve seen RSSIs on average higher than a similarly setup and co-located RisingHF.

Wasn’t me, but my one unit arrived today :smile:

1 Like

We will have new stock end of september.

Hi @jmarcelino,

Thank you for your help learning this gateway.

I have one, easy to set up but now my gateway has not been seen on TTN for 5 days now.

Everything is ok in TTN console but I can’t find a way to get any logs from the Sentrius.

In my dashboard all my connections are green but not connected in TTN.

Any ideas??

Thanks is advance and great work

OK - I’ll bite
I can order one of these in the UK for £192.98 and the ship date is November.

Someone please tell me why I shouldn’t buy one?
…and yes, I am waiting for a gateway :frowning:

the color ? :wink:

Now BoRRoZ, that’s just mean :slight_smile: . (My finger hovers over the “order” button right now).

Does anyone know if there is something the TTN gateway does that this RG186-ND cannot do?
I read something about “multi packet forwarding” but I’m not sure if this a valid reason for delaying the purchase of this or not.
N.B. this is a not a dig at the TTN team, I just want to know if I can have what I want now. (a working multi channel gateway)

1 Like