RAP Setup Guide

Flashing the AP's firmware:

The APs use OpenWRT. Download the latest firmware from the OpenWRT site. A simple google search for "bullet openwrt" returned this page which indicated that the correct identifiers for the firmware of the NanoBridge M900 being setup in this example are "ar71xx" and "generic".

1. Follow the UbiquitiResetGuide to hard reset the AP.
2. Connect the PoE LAN port to a computer.
3. Assign the computer an IP:
   • ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.0.0
4. Change to the directory where the firmware was saved.
5. Connect to the AP with tftp and upload the firmware, replacing `FirmwareFileName.bin` with the file name of the downloaded firmware:
   • tftp 192.168.1.20
     • The tftp transfer console will come up and the commands are land out below.
   • tftp> bin
   • tftp> trace
   • tftp> put FirmwareFileName.bin
     • This step will take some time for the firmware to upload. Wait for it to finish before entering the last command.
   • tftp> quit
6. The AP will reboot and it may take some time before it will respond to 192.168.1.20 again.

Configuring the AP:

1. Connect to the AP with telnet:
   • telnet 192.168.1.20
2. Set a root password with the `passwd` command.
3. Edit the config file `/etc/config/network`:
   • Under the line `config interface 'lan'`:
     • Set option netmask to 255.255.0.0
     • Set option ipaddr to 10.{3-4}.255.{0-253}
       • The second octet can be 3 or 4 and the last octet any number between 0-253.
       • Make sure you write down and remember this address.
     • Add the following line, replacing the second octet with 3 or 4:
       • option gateway '10.{3-4}.255.253'
         • The second octet will be the same as the second octet ipaddr you chose.
4. Reboot the AP.
5. Use ssh to connect as root to the IP you wrote down in the previous step (this is an example IP):
   • ssh root@10.4.255.137
     • The password will be the password set with telnet and `passwd` previously.
6. Update the AP's package manager with the following:
   • opkg update
     • The update may have errors when downloading the package updates due to packet loss or other disturbances. If more than 3 errors occurred, it would be best to run it again until less than 3 of the downloaded packages are failing.
7. Install the SSL version of luci on the AP:
   • opkg install luci-ssl
8. Set things so it redirects http requests to https:
   • uci set uhttpd.main.redirect_https='1'
   • uci commit
9. (Re)start the webserver on the AP:
   • /etc/init.d/uhttpd restart
10. Configure your computer that is connected to the LAN port on the PoE so that it can communicate with the AP:
    • ifconfig eth0 10.{3-4}.255.{0-253}
11. Go to the IP address of the AP written down in a previous step in a web browser.

reconfigure your networking interface to 192.168.1.10
login to router web interface : 192.168.1.1
root
password may be hippie

click on the system tab
click backup / flash firmware tab
in restore backup lable, click browse button
find backupconfig file (back-rap0...)
click upload archive button
<system reboots>

change your local ip address to 10.3.?.?(anythig between 0 and 254 is ok in both places)
(ifconfig eth0 inet 10.3.255.1 netmask 255.255.0.0)

ssh to 10.3.255.100
Login as root
cd to /etc/config

vi wireless
find the only mac address at bottom of screen of data,and copy it
Paste that data in commented line at top of document option macaddr, and uncomment the line. (copy data with mouse, hit i (for insert), then right click mouse and paste data.)
delete last 2 paragraphs document. Hit escape to escape insert mode, the hit dd to delete the line.
Replace radio1 with radio0 ":%s/radio1/radio0/g"
ZZ to save and exit

If you'd like to reload the wifi subsystem you can type:

wifi

vi system
scroll to hosname, change rap0 to rap? (? is ap number)
hit r to replace the 0 with the number
ZZ to save and exit

open network fie with vi (vi network)
scroll to ipaddr on lan interface, and change the last octet to 100 + the number of the ap (103 for bbap3)
ZZ to save and exit

You can reload the network sub system by:

/etc/init.d/network reload

or you can reboot router (type reboot ; exit and hit enter)
open web interface at ap's new ip address, login as root, click network tab, click wifi subtab, document the first (of 3 devices) interfaces mac address (DC:9F:D8:68:BD:35 for BBAP2)

Block Multicast and other garbage packets

There are a lot of discovery protocols out there these days that mobile devices use to find services that are essentially non-existent on the Playa, such as bonjour, zeroconfi, local printers etc... Most of them either broadcast the request for, or an advertisement of a service using special packets that go to all (or many) devices on that local network. Most of these use a type of packet called multicast, and some use a simpler type called broadcast. These useless searches can account for around half of all the packets sent on a busy network. Now you can't prevent the user's devices from making the initial request but since all WiFi client packets must go through the AP before either being retransmitted to another client of that AP or being passed up the wire, you have the opportunity to filter them.

As we've seen above, each time a device choses to send a packet, there is an opportunity for a collision with something else also trying to send something. Anyway, we should all try to make our WiFi environment less congested by filtering these useless packets when we can.

This issue is on the radar of many WiFi manufactures who often provide a means to block multicast traffic. I believe there is a check box for this in later versions of AirOS on Ubiquiti devices. Please search for and enable this feature. If it's not supported on your firmware, you might be able to reflash your device with alternative firmware such as DD-WRT or OpenWRT. Here are some notes on how to set up the filters on OpenWRT: OpenWRTMulticastFiltering, and it shouldn't' be too hard to adapt to other Linux based systems.

-- JamieC - 09 Jul 2013

• backup-rap0-2013-06-30.tar.gz: Initial Config for OCF Repeater APs