OTA update robustness

Hi Dave,
A few things:

• we are using the native (plus a few extra steps) sysupgrade process from OpenWRT.
• The latest nightly builds do contain a check for the filename to ensure that it's appropriate for the device. (3.16.1.x and 3.18.9.0 do not have these checks)
• You should reboot immediately before doing an upgrade.
• Most of the time, when upgrades have failed on me, they fail because of lack of memory (thus, the prior reboot recommendation).  In these cases, the node will stay at the same version after the reboot. (soft fail)
• I would recommend uninstalling any packages that you may have manually installed on the node first.  (ie.  MeshChat)
• Next, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you UPGRADE to v3.18.9.0 (or at least v3.16.1.2) IMMEDIATELY due to security vulnerability fixes. 

Here's the release notes for v3.18.9.0:   https://www.arednmesh.org/content/aredn-release-notes-v31890
Here's the changelog of features/bugfixes since v3.18.9.0 that are in the nightly builds:  http://downloads.arednmesh.org/snapshots/trunk/CHANGELOG.md
 

Procedurally, shut down any tunnels and reboot the nodes before performing the upgrade and you won;'t have any troubles.  You aren't unique in having remote nodes... all of us have them to one degree or another and have been doing firmware upgrades like this routinely.

Andre, K6AH
 

Ditto all of the above.  I have around 98% success rate with OTA upgrades on over 400+ and only one (1) that had to be brought down off the tower and swapped out due to my loading the "wrong" firmware - hence the new firmware validation feature.  The procedures outlined above are a must, especially the remove modules and reboot before upgrading.  If you are on 3.16.1.1, suggest "stepping up" slowly at least to a production version, either 3.16.1.2 or 3.18 before moving on to any of the nightlies.  I had a pair of nodes high up on a hardened site tower that had been up for 386 days since last upgrade.  Talk about a pucker factor on those upgrades!  Thankfully they went without a hitch!

And don't forget to check for STATIC WAN on the older Firmware loads 3.16.1.1 and probably Pre 3.18 and switch them back to DHCP on the WAN before performing upgrades.