New here, so apologies if this is the wrong spot to post this
Getting started with this aerdn stuff, went thru the list of supported gadgets, bought a couple TPlink cpe710-v2 units for a long hop from here to a mountaintop install roughly 20km distant, they are listed as supported and stable, and reading thru the instructions for flashing them, not a lot of hassle getting firmware on like some of the other brands (says he glancing over at ubiquiti). I started out by flashing the two of them with the 3.25.5.1 build downloaded here.
I have them set up here at home to work out issues before we start trying the link to the mountain top unit which will be installed in the near future. Current setup, the units are 400 feet apart aimed at each other. Both are plugged into a smart switch and I have the vlans all set as required. Network link from the house to the back lot where the second is located is carried on a 10gb optical fiber that runs from the house back to the observatory dome we have back there. The units are powered thru a remote power switch so I can power cycle things without going out to the location.
To test the units over the rf link, they get vlan 1 enabled at the switch so they can get dhcp from local network allowing me to go in with ssh and see what's going on. I have gone thru all the various combination of enabled vlans at the switch to check out all the various possible links. Dtd works, local network works, and the dhcp on vlan 1 works, all validated and tested. BUT, the one link that's giving me trouble, is the RF link. With both nodes set to Mesh mode (ad hoc network) the link is not stable. Retest using ptmp on one, then mesh client on the other, all works well. The issue for me is, those mountain top units are all on a mesh network using mesh (ad hoc) modes, so Ihave to use that mode on this end.
With both ends set to mesh, ie ad-hoc networking, they do see each other, and appear in the web interface to be linked and 'talking', ie the remote shows up in the neigborhood nodes section, identified, lq 100% nlq 100% with no errors. But try iperf between them, no joy, then looking at the logs on the remote I see this
====
[ 103.990909] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: wmi: fixing invalid VHT TX rate code 0xff
[ 104.108633] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: Invalid peer id 0 or peer stats buffer, peer: 00000000 sta: 00000000
====
Once the peer stats error shows up in the log, that's it, rf link stops working and the unit is dead on the rf link until rebooted.
I have validated this with the production build, nightly builds etc.
I am not a spring chicken when it comes to openwrt development, been using it for nigh on 20 years, so I dug in and tried to isolate the problem, so my next step was to check out areden from github, and build from scratch, then install that. Same issue, so I started looking at how it's all built, and what drivers are in place. For this unit, aerden build uses the ddwrt driver. I swapped that out, and built with various different ath10k drivers to attempt to isolate things. I've tried the ath10k-ct, ath10k-ct-htt and ath10k-ct-full-htt. None gave a stable rf link in ad hoc mode, and in fact, not all will do ad hoc modes.
To farther isolate, I build a freshly checked out openwrt from scratch, checked out at the same revision as the aerden build. Using luci, set up an ad-hoc network, and get the same issue. Units connect, appear to be working, but ultimately one end or the other will produce the above ath10k error, and after that, no more joy on the rf link. I then introduced a couple other units I have laying around here (unifiac-mesh), and they join the ad-hoc network fine, and I can run iperf across those links. It's just the cpe710 that is failing.
These units are marked as supported and stable in the supported devices list. Does somebody else have them in use and working on a mesh network, if so, how did you manage to get that going. So far, the only way I've been able to make them work reliably is in ptmp and mesh client modes, which wont work with our mountaintop installation, that is scheduled to be a rocket feeding a sector antenna.
Thoughts ?
Getting started with this aerdn stuff, went thru the list of supported gadgets, bought a couple TPlink cpe710-v2 units for a long hop from here to a mountaintop install roughly 20km distant, they are listed as supported and stable, and reading thru the instructions for flashing them, not a lot of hassle getting firmware on like some of the other brands (says he glancing over at ubiquiti). I started out by flashing the two of them with the 3.25.5.1 build downloaded here.
I have them set up here at home to work out issues before we start trying the link to the mountain top unit which will be installed in the near future. Current setup, the units are 400 feet apart aimed at each other. Both are plugged into a smart switch and I have the vlans all set as required. Network link from the house to the back lot where the second is located is carried on a 10gb optical fiber that runs from the house back to the observatory dome we have back there. The units are powered thru a remote power switch so I can power cycle things without going out to the location.
To test the units over the rf link, they get vlan 1 enabled at the switch so they can get dhcp from local network allowing me to go in with ssh and see what's going on. I have gone thru all the various combination of enabled vlans at the switch to check out all the various possible links. Dtd works, local network works, and the dhcp on vlan 1 works, all validated and tested. BUT, the one link that's giving me trouble, is the RF link. With both nodes set to Mesh mode (ad hoc network) the link is not stable. Retest using ptmp on one, then mesh client on the other, all works well. The issue for me is, those mountain top units are all on a mesh network using mesh (ad hoc) modes, so Ihave to use that mode on this end.
With both ends set to mesh, ie ad-hoc networking, they do see each other, and appear in the web interface to be linked and 'talking', ie the remote shows up in the neigborhood nodes section, identified, lq 100% nlq 100% with no errors. But try iperf between them, no joy, then looking at the logs on the remote I see this
====
[ 103.990909] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: wmi: fixing invalid VHT TX rate code 0xff
[ 104.108633] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: Invalid peer id 0 or peer stats buffer, peer: 00000000 sta: 00000000
====
Once the peer stats error shows up in the log, that's it, rf link stops working and the unit is dead on the rf link until rebooted.
I have validated this with the production build, nightly builds etc.
I am not a spring chicken when it comes to openwrt development, been using it for nigh on 20 years, so I dug in and tried to isolate the problem, so my next step was to check out areden from github, and build from scratch, then install that. Same issue, so I started looking at how it's all built, and what drivers are in place. For this unit, aerden build uses the ddwrt driver. I swapped that out, and built with various different ath10k drivers to attempt to isolate things. I've tried the ath10k-ct, ath10k-ct-htt and ath10k-ct-full-htt. None gave a stable rf link in ad hoc mode, and in fact, not all will do ad hoc modes.
To farther isolate, I build a freshly checked out openwrt from scratch, checked out at the same revision as the aerden build. Using luci, set up an ad-hoc network, and get the same issue. Units connect, appear to be working, but ultimately one end or the other will produce the above ath10k error, and after that, no more joy on the rf link. I then introduced a couple other units I have laying around here (unifiac-mesh), and they join the ad-hoc network fine, and I can run iperf across those links. It's just the cpe710 that is failing.
These units are marked as supported and stable in the supported devices list. Does somebody else have them in use and working on a mesh network, if so, how did you manage to get that going. So far, the only way I've been able to make them work reliably is in ptmp and mesh client modes, which wont work with our mountaintop installation, that is scheduled to be a rocket feeding a sector antenna.
Thoughts ?
Both are plugged into a smart switch and I have the vlans all set as required.
The units are powered thru a remote power switch
Dumb question here ... but you didn't plug them into the same smart switch? You cannot have the radios dtd and rf at the same time. If you deploy two devices pointed at each other 20km distant ... you are NOT creating a network. You are creating TWO separate networks with separate DHCP LAN in two sites, with an rf link between. The only reason to have two devices on the same switch is if they are on different channels and pointed in different directions at one site. The CPE710s each are the ONLY router you need on each end, and imho you should not yet be fooling with other networks or the internet while just getting them working. Just power them up with batteries and a power injector, or with an extension cord, or whatever and don't tie them together in any way except for rf. You can leave them up and running and run from one to the other with one laptop, or have a friend on one LAN and you on the other.
Current setup, the units are 400 feet apart aimed at each other.
You did drop the power way down, like to 5db or less at that close range, right? If you blast full power at that close range the radios will desense and not work.
Perhaps something here was useful. Good luck!
Ed
+1. Agree.
IMHO, 'the radios will not DtD and rf at the same time.'
This is a firmware design.
I think, if a DtD, Xlink, or tunnel to the same node exists, the RF link will be ignored.
The nodes can still cause/suffer from RF interference, channel contention,
hidden transmitter, and/or exposed node issues.
-----
"...radios will desense and not work."
Disagree.
At full RF power setting:
I have multiple sites in-service with co-located nodes on adjacent (non-overlapping) channels without apparent 'desense'.
I have field tested 6x nodes on the same mast at full power on adjacent (non-overlapping) channels without apparent 'desense'.
73, Chuck
I agree.
However, VA7NM posted a large amount of information about his complicated network
and little information about his nodes' configuration(channel, bandwidth, SSID, TX dBm,...)
I would like to see only
the 2 nodes powered, same channel, same bandwidth, same (default) SSID,
browse with 1 computer at either end,
no VLANs, no switches, and no internet.
73,