[Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti Picostation M2HP

Tue Apr 5 12:34:41 EDT 2016

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:
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Save_WiFi/Individual_Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 6:42 AM, Nicolas North <star at nikksno.io> wrote:

> Hi there!
>
> Thank you so much for your reply.
>
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> Do other cw-supported devices have the same reliability, quality and price
> as ubiquiti devices?
>
> 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.
>
> Thank you again and thanks to all who’d like to share some advice for this
> project! :)
>
>
> Nicolas
>
>
>
> From: d***@***.net
> Reply: d***@***.net
> Date: 3 Apr 2016 at 19:59:34
> To: Nicolas North <star at nikksno.io> <star at nikksno.io>
> Subject:  RE: [Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti Picostation
> M2HP
>
> 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.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Nicolas North" <star at nikksno.io>
> Sent: Sunday, April 3, 2016 11:41am
> To: commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: [Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti Picostation M2HP
>
> Hi everybody!
>
> I’m looking to start a mesh network here in Milano [Italia] where I live
> and I need some help :)
>
> I have a ubiquiti picosta tion m2hp that I can’t get to work with the cw
> openwrt firmware.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> I tried ddwrt out of curiosity and it works perfectly.
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>
> I’m using the bullet image as instructed.
>
> The pico is brand new so I don’t want to open it and void the warranty.
>
> What can I do to fix this?
>
> Thank you very much in advance!
>
>
> Nicolas
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
>
>

-- 
Ben West
http://gowasabi.net
ben at gowasabi.net
314-246-9434
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