Mesh/WalkThrough

Revision as of 22:07, 1 August 2013 by Tunabananas (talk | contribs) (Added simple walkthrough)
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Tested and working on:

   *Bullet M5
   *Bullet 2 HP
   *Picostation 2 HP 

Step One: Reset the router

  • Press and hold the reset button while plugging in the powered ethernet cable.
  • Keep holding the reset button. Look at the LED above the power LED.
  • It will go from one green light, to two
  • Release the reset button when it turns on the second time.

The Bullet will now be running a TFTP server 192.168.1.20

Step Two: Configure the router's IP address

  • Ensure that you have an IP address different from 192.168.1.20 and in the 192.168.1.x range.
  • You may want to stop network-manager (I believe Ubuntu mostly:
    sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager stop
  • On most linux machines (assuming your ethernet interface is eth0) setting your ip address looks like this:
    sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.12 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

Step Three: Install OpenWRT on the router

  • Afterwards do the following:
    tftp 192.168.1.20
    binary
    rexmt 1
    timeout 60
    trace
    tftp> put firmwarefile.bin (see below)

Where firmwarefile.bin is the name of the firmware file you want to flash.

Assuming you want to run Attitude Adjustment, the correct firmwares for tested routers are:

Bullet M5: openwrt-ar71xx-generic-ubnt-airrouter-squashfs-factory.bin
Bullet 2 HP: openwrt-atheros-ubnt2-squashfs.bin
Picostation 2 HP: openwrt-atheros-ubnt2-pico2-squashfs.bin

You will see a bunch of lines like this:

sent DATA <block=13468, 512 bytes> received ACK <block=13468>

Once those lines stop coming the router will take somewhere between 1 and 7 minutes to stop flashing its lights at you. DO NOT unplug or turn off the router until it presents two adjacent green LEDs and has done so for 10+ seconds. On the older routers the upgrade can take much longer than on the newer routers so be patient.

Note, that if you're flashing AirOS instead, at least the Bullet M5 series will remember setting between firmware upgrades and others may do so too. To reset username / password / ip address and other settings to factory default, first let the router boot, then press and hold the reset button until more lights come on and release. Wait for the factory reset to complete (a minute or two) and try to access 192.168.1.1 in a browser (ensure that your own IP is in the 192.168.1.x range). Note: This procedure seems to have no effect on the Bullet 2 HP, but works on the Bullet M5. It could be that the Bullet 2 HP does not persist settings across firmware upgrades, and so doesn't have the factory reset procedure.

Ubiquiti in Windows

from the directory where you stored the .bin file:

>tftp -i 192.168.1.20 PUT openwrt-atheros-ubnt2-squashfs.bin

Downloads within a minute, wait about 5 minutes to finish installing...