<div dir="ltr">Please be aware Ubiquity is gradually rolling out updates to their stock firmware that will block flashing 3rd party firmware like Commotion Wireless (and by extension OpenWRT and DD-WRT). Right now such locks are in place on new 5.8GHz gear (e.g. Nanostation M5's), and possibly they will start appearing on 2.4GHz gear. The reasons for these locks are quite specious (in my opinion), and they were spurred by recent FCC decisions, about which you can read here: <a href="https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Save_WiFi/Individual_Comments" target="_blank">https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Save_WiFi/Individual_Comments</a><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Current versions of OpenWRT and DD-WRT may be to work around such locks, e.g. DD-WRT loading while OpenWRT does not, but Commotion Wireless itself will lag behind the latest version of OpenWRT by some margin.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">A common recommendation I've read to work-around such locks is to first downgrade the stock AirOS firmware to an older version, e.g. v5.5.10, and from there flash Commotion Wireless.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Again, do please note underlying issue is that the radio manufacturer themselves are beginning to lock out anything but their own stock firmware. The extent to which such locks have been implemented appears to vary from product to product (e.g. certain things are locked on new Picostations which aren't locked on Nanostations or Rockets), but downgrading the stock firmware and then flashing to 3rd party is a common recommendation I've read.<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Long term outlook, unfortunately, is that OpenWRT and DD-WRT eventually will be barred entirely from all wifi products that operate on 5.8GHz band, along with some 2.4GHz products too. Generally, this is applies only to the USA, but many device manufacturers are implementing the locks universally, regardless of country where the device is sold.<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 6:42 AM, Nicolas North <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:star@nikksno.io" target="_blank">star@nikksno.io</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">Hi there!</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">Thank you so much for your reply.</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">This is an important problem as the picostations are great in terms of coverage / price ratio. I’m now looking at other ubiquiti devices but the antennas for the ubnt rocket cost more than the rockets themselves. I’m trying to figure out how much larger the range would be with rockets + omni antennas.</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">Could I ask you which devices you’ve switched to or are planning to switch to given the impossibility of using picostations with cw firmwares at the moment?</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">Do other cw-supported devices have the same reliability, quality and price as ubiquiti devices?</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">I have to cover all houses [meaning the inside of houses in practically every room with decent signal] inside a living complex 120 meters wide and 100 meters long with lots of exterior spaces. The APs would all be on rooftops no higher than two storeys above the ground. I’m thinking of sticking with 2.4GHz for now as it reaches better inside houses.</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">Thank you again and thanks to all who’d like to share some advice for this project! :)</div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto"><br></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px;color:rgba(0,0,0,1.0);margin:0px;line-height:auto">Nicolas</div> <div style="color:black"><br></div><div style="color:black"><br></div><div style="color:black"><br>From: <span style="color:black">d***@***.net</span><br>Reply: d***@***.net <br>Date: <span style="color:black">3 Apr 2016 at 19:59:34</span><br>To: <span style="color:black">Nicolas North</span> <a href="mailto:star@nikksno.io" target="_blank"><star@nikksno.io></a><br>Subject: <span style="color:black"> RE: [Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti Picostation M2HP <br></span></div><br> <blockquote type="cite"><span><div><div></div><div>
<p style="margin:0;padding:0;margin:0;padding:0;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:12pt;word-wrap:break-word">
<font face="times new roman" size="3">We have a small mesh project
we're working on here in Vermont, U.S.A. We have found that
we are unable to install Commotion on recent models of Ubiquiti
Picostation. Commotion says others have found that Picostation
version v5.6.x and above is incompatible with Commotion, but that
probably it wouldn't load at all rather than not being
configuarable as in our case. Anyway, we aren't going to buy
anymore Picostaions. Maybe this relates to your problem.</font></p><div><div>
<p style="margin:0;padding:0;margin:0;padding:0;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:12pt;word-wrap:break-word">
<font face="times new roman" size="3">-----Original
Message-----<br>
From: "Nicolas North" <<a href="mailto:star@nikksno.io" target="_blank">star@nikksno.io</a>><br>
Sent: Sunday, April 3, 2016 11:41am<br>
To: <a href="mailto:commotion-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">commotion-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br>
Subject: [Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti Picostation
M2HP<br>
<br></font></p>
<div>
<div style="margin:0px">
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">Hi
everybody!</span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I’m looking to start a
mesh network here in Milano [Italia] where I live and I need some
help :)</span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I have a ubiquiti
picosta tion m2hp that I can’t get to work with the cw openwrt
firmware.</span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I downloaded the
factory image from the website and followed the guide but
after I uploaded the new firmware from the airmax web
interface and after the pico rebooted it only had the power and
network lights on and seemed to create no network at all: it didn’t
provide any dhcp so I tried to connect to it manually by
setting ip address and netmask on my macbook and trying all kinds
of stuff but I had no success.</span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I tried it
the tftp way then but it failed with a 512 "firmware check
failed" error code. So I tried flashing three different pure
openwrt firmwares onto it but it kept failing with the same
code.</span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I tried ddwrt out
of curiosity and it works perfectly.</span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></font></div>
<div style="margin:0px"><font face="times new roman" size="3"><span style="line-height:19.5px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I was never able to get
it back to airmax thought: tftp doesn’t fail but
after it reboots it gets stuck in a 20 second bootloop and
even after power cycling it it keeps restarting and never becomes
reachable. Do you think I could try at least reverting it to airmax
from the ddwrt web interface?</span></span></font></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I have tried compiling
openwrt from scratch specifically with the ath9k drivers but after
three hours of compilation it still fails via tftp with the same
error.</span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="margin:0px"><span style="line-height:19.5px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">I’m using the bullet
image as instructed.</span></span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">The pico is brand new
so I don’t want to open it and void the warranty.</span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">What can I do to fix
this?</span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">Thank you very
much in advance!</span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large"> </span></div>
<div style="color:#000000;line-height:19.5px;margin:0px"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:large">Nicolas</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<p style="margin:0;padding:0;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:12pt;word-wrap:break-word">
</p>
</div></div></div></div></span></blockquote></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
Commotion-discuss mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Commotion-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">Commotion-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a><br>
<a href="https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div>Ben West<div><a href="http://gowasabi.net" target="_blank">http://gowasabi.net</a><br><a href="mailto:ben@gowasabi.net" target="_blank">ben@gowasabi.net</a><br><a href="tel:314-246-9434" value="+13142469434" target="_blank">314-246-9434</a><br></div></div>
</div></div>