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Getting started

These steps describe how to get started with ChirpStack Gateway OS after you have installed ChirpStack Gateway OS on your gateway (e.g. by writing the image to a SD card).

Important: After the first boot, the gateway might reboot automatically to apply some changes. The Full image will setup the PostgreSQL database on its first boot. This could take a couple of minutes and during this time, the gateway will be less responsive.

Connecting

Obtaining gateway IP address

Ethernet

After your gateway has booted, it will use DHCP to obtain an IP address. Many internet routers provide a web-interface where you will find the IP addresses of connected devices.

Wi-Fi

If your gateway has Wi-Fi support, then the ChirpStack Gateway OS will create an access-point to which you can connect with the name ChirpStackAP-XXXXXX and password ChirpStackAP.

Once connected with ChirpStackAP the IP of the gateway is 192.168.0.1.

Notes:

  • It is recommended to reconfigure the gateway to connect to your Wi-Fi network, or to disable the access-point mode if the gateway is connected using ethernet.

  • The ChirpStackAP access-point IP address 192.168.0.1 might conflict with your local network. If that is the case, please make sure you are disconnected from your local network before connecting to the ChirpStackAP access-point. Once you have re-configured the gateway to connect to your Wi-Fi network, you can re-connect your machine back to your local network.

Web-interface

The ChirpStack Gateway OS provides a web-interface. You can connect to the web-interface by entering http://GATEWAY-IP-ADDRESS/ in your browser. For example if the IP address of your gateway is 192.168.0.1, then you need to enter http://192.168.0.1.

Your browser might show you a warning about a self-signed certificate. Click proceed.

The default credentials are:

  • Username: root
  • Password: (not set)

Set password

Once you have logged in, it is recommended to set a password for the root user. In the left menu click System, then click Administration.

This will provide you with a form to set the Router Password.

Configure Wi-Fi (optional)

If your gateway has Wi-Fi support, then follow the next steps to connect over Wi-Fi (which will also disable the access-point mode).

  1. In the left menu click Network, then click Wireless.
  2. Click the Scan button, after a couple of seconds this will show the available Wi-Fi networks.
  3. Click the Join Network button of the network you want to join.
  4. In the Joining Network form, enter the following values and click Submit:
    • Replace wireless configuration: Selected
    • WPA passphrase: Enter the password of the selected Wi-Fi network
    • Create / Assign firewall-zone: Select the dropdown item with the green background.
  5. Click Save
  6. Click Save & Apply

After your gateway has connected to the Wi-Fi network, you need to obtain the IP address again and re-connect. Please see the Connecting steps.

Flash concentrator firmware (optional)

In case you have a USB based concentrator module (USB based SX1302/3 module or 2.4GHz module), you must flash the MCU firmware of the module before it can be used.

To upgrade the MCU firmware, click System and then Custom Commands. Click the Run button for the firmware upgrade option.

Configure Concentratord

To configure the concentrator, click ChirpStack and then Concentratord in the left menu. The important settings that you must configure are:

  • Global configuration
    • Enabled chipset: Set this to the chipset matching your gateway
  • SX1301, SX1302/SX1303, 2.4GHz tabs (matching the Enabled chipset)
    • Shield model: Select the shield model.
    • Channel-plan: Select the channel-plan. This will show an error if the channel-plan is not supported by the gateway or if the channel-plan has not been implemented yet.

If all fields are correctly configured, click Save & Apply.

Notes:

  • Save & Apply will automatically configure the ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder MQTT prefix.
  • If you are using the Full image, then this will also enable the region in ChirpStack.

Confirm configuration

Once the Concentratord has been properly configured, the footer of the web-interface should change from:

Gateway ID: could not read gateway_id

to (0102030405060708 replaced by the ID of your gateway):

Gateway ID: 0102030405060708

Note: It might take a couple of seconds for the Concentratord to initialize. You might need to refresh the page a couple of times.

Configure ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder (optional)

Note: If you are using the Full image, then ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder is already configured to forward to the local ChirpStack Network Server instance. In this case, no configuration is required.

To configure the ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder to forward to a (remote) MQTT broker, click ChirpStack and then MQTT Forwarder in the left menu.

The important settings that you must configure are:

  • Topic prefix: This must match the topic prefix as configured by ChirpStack. Note that this will be automatically set after the Concentratord configuration.
  • Use JSON: Only enable this option for debugging purposes.
  • Server: The address of the MQTT broker, e.g. tcp://example.com:1883 or ssl://example.com:8883 (TLS).

Depending the configuration of the MQTT broker, you might also want to edit the Username / Password fields or CA certificate / TLS certificate and TLS key-file fields.

To apply the changes, click Save & Apply.

Configure ChirpStack UDP Forwarder (optional)

The ChirpStack UDP Forwarder makes it possible to connect your gateway to one or multiple Network Servers compatible with the Semtech UDP Packet-Forwarder protocol. This makes it possible to connect your gateway to multiple Network Servers simultaneously.

To configure the ChirpStack UDP Forwarder, click ChirpStack and then UDP Forwarder in the left menu.

Here you can configure multiple servers to which the ChirpStack UDP Forwarder will forward simultaneously. Per server you must configure:

  • Server: The hostname or IP address + port of the server, e.g. example:1700.

To apply the changes, click Save & Apply.

Using ChirpStack LoRaWAN Network Server

If you have properly configured your gateway and if you have installed the Full image (see Image types), then you are ready to use the ChirpStack LoRaWAN Network Server.

To open ChirpStack, click Applications in the left menu, and then click the ChirpStack logo. This will open the ChirpStack web-interface in a new window.

Please refer to the Connecting a device guide for connecting your first device.

Note: ChirpStack has been configured to allow gateway data from unknown gateways, therefore it is not required to add your gateway to ChirpStack first.