Partial Config for WiFi

[William Laing]

Good Day.

We have over half-a-dozen Conduits, but none of them are currently equipped for WiFi. We have an upcoming client with WiFi use cases.

Can you tell us if WiFi parameters can be changed via DeviceHQ and uploading a partial config? If you have a reference or screenshot, that would be great!

Thanks,
William

[Steve Kovarik]

Hi William

Today Wi-Fi is not part of the “partial configuration” feature in DeviceHQ.
For Wi-Fi capable Conduits you would need to upload to DeviceHQ a full
Conduit configuration file with desired Wi-Fi settings that would
become available to schedule for download to other Wi-Fi capable Conduits.

-Best Regards

[William Laing]

Good Morning, Steve –

Thank you for the response!

Great, so uploading the full configuration file is one option.

We are working with a client , a well-known company, who would like to commercialize systems we develop jointly. The systems combine their product with our technology to make a LoRa end-device and your Conduits.

What are the alternatives for configuring and deploying significant numbers of Conduits to the field? We wouldn’t want to manually configure each one. We would prefer to have them shipped directly to our partner or even to the end-user directly.

(1) Is DeviceHQ the way to go? But even with DeviceHQ, we would have to configure each Conduit with the necessary information to reach DeviceHQ: for example, Remote Management -> Remote Server, like the ds.devicehq.com server name, server port, checking the Enabled box, etc.

(2) Is some level of pre-configuring the Conduits something you guys could do before shipping? Like pre-configuring the Remote Management stuff?

(3) We use the AEP API, but that only works when we know the IP address and it’s the IP address is accessible. Do you know of any tricks here to make this work more broadly?

(4) the mts-io-sysfs commands are of some help but do not seem suitable for configuration.

(5) None of our Conduits and IP67s are configured for Wi-Fi. On Wi-Fi configured systems, could our customers access the Conduit web server and use the management pages to configure their gateway?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best,
William

[Steve Kovarik]

Hi William

In your commercialized deployment will all Conduits be identically configured?
Each Conduit will need to be touched, I feel that your options are;
1) log into the web administration and “restore” a full configuration file.
2) Configure Conduit for DeviceHQ, after successful check-in schedule configuration file download/installation.
3) Create AEP API script. Conduits ship with default IP 192.168.2.1
4) Contact MultiTech Sales for $$ quote to load configuration file at factory.

5) Yes, it is possible for your customer to log into the Conduit web
administration to enable and configure Wi-Fi parameters.

-Best Regards

[William Laing]

Thanks again, Steve – all useful ideas, thanks!

Just a couple clarifications please:

(1) can a Conduit serve as both Wi-Fi WAN and Wi-Fi AP at the same time?
(2) Assume a Conduit is deployed with Eth0, Cellular and WiFi all enabled and prioritized for Failover. Assuming Wi-Fi is configured as access point, and user can access the Conduit’s WiFi network, can a user use any browser to access the embedded management pages using 192.168.2.1, say to to configure WiFi WAN settings?

Thanks,
William

[Steve Kovarik]

Hi William

1) No concurrent “Wi-Fi as WAN” and “Wi-Fi AP”
2) Yes, any browser can be used to access the Web Admin over Wi-Fi.

-Best Regards

[William Laing]

Great, Steve, thanks.

I have a couple more for you:

(1) if the Conduit is configured for Wi-Fi AP, can I use my browser and access the Web Admin over the Wi-Fi AP to enable Wi-Fi WAN?
(2) is it possible to purchase the Conduit as an OEM board with no enclosure?

Thanks again!
William

[Steve Kovarik]

Hi William

1) No, once “Wi-Fi as WAN” is enabled and configured, the Conduit connects to
the AP which disrupts the Wi-Fi “web administration” session so you can not
disable “Wi-Fi Access Point” mode or perform a “Save & Restart”.
2) No, that would forfeit our FCC certifications.

-Best Regards

[William Laing]

Thank you, Steve – very helpful to know.

We had a client meeting yesterday and walked through the use case in question. We believe we can mostly pre-configure the Conduit using one or more of your factory, our manufacturing partner and us. However, there’s one last piece to the puzzle.

After the Conduit is finally shipped to the end user, can you think of any way that Wi-Fi can be configured as WAN by us (remotely or through software) or by the end user? We do not want the end user to have Web Admin access. The SSIDs and other configuration items for WiFi as WAN will not be known until delivery to the end user.

+ we will be developing IoS and Android apps using Bluetooth; could we possibly use Bluetooth to configure Wi-Fi as WAN?

Any ideas appreciated!

Best,
William

[Steve Kovarik]

Hi William

I feel that once deployed and no customer access to web administration that
DeviceHQ would need to be used. When the Conduit “checks-in” it can upload
its current configuration file to DeviceHQ. You could download that
configuration file, load it into a Conduit you have, configure Wi-Fi as WAN
save the new config file, upload it to DeviceHQ for download to another Conduit.
I am not aware of a way to use Bluetooth for Conduit configuration.

-Best Regards

[William Laing]

Okay, Steve, thanks.

We’re now looking at having our application modify Wi-Fi parameters in the config file and upload/download using AEP API.

Can you point us to detailed documentation for the AEP API, especially for /api/command/download_config and /api/command/upload_config ?

When we do a POST for upload_config, we get a “200 Authorized Redirect” and a pointer to the file, <meta http-equiv=”REFRESH” content=”0;url=/tmp/config_MTCDT-LAT1-246A_1_6_2_02_21_19.tar.gz”>

But where is the file?

Thanks again!
William

[Steve Kovarik]

Hi William

I see that you have an open Support Portal case on this same topic, so we will continue this dialog in the Support Poratal.

-Best Regards

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