The Things Network: iC880a-based gateway

Reference setup for The Things Network gateways based on the iC880a USB concentrator with a Raspberry Pi host.

This installer targets the USB version of the board, if you have the SPI version, check this branch.

Setup based on Raspbian image

• Download Raspbian Jessie Lite

• Follow the installation instruction to create the SD card

• Start your RPi connected to Ethernet

• Plug the iC880a (WARNING: first power plug to the wall socket, then to the gateway DC jack, and ONLY THEN USB to RPi!)

• From a computer in the same LAN, ssh into the RPi using the default hostname:

    local $ ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
  

• Default password of a plain-vanilla RASPBIAN install for user pi is raspberry

• Use raspi-config utility to expand the filesystem (1 Expand filesystem):

    $ sudo raspi-config
  

• Reboot

• Configure locales and time zone:

    $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
    $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
  

• Make sure you have an updated installation and install git:

    $ sudo apt-get update
    $ sudo apt-get upgrade
    $ sudo apt-get install git
  

• Create new user for TTN and add it to sudoers

    $ sudo adduser ttn 
    $ sudo adduser ttn sudo
  

• To prevent the system asking root password regularly, add TTN user in sudoers file

    $ sudo visudo
  

Add the line ttn ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

⚠️ Beware this allows a connected console with the ttn user to issue any commands on your system, without any password control. This step is completely optional and remains your decision.

• Logout and login as ttn and remove the default pi user

    $ sudo userdel -rf pi
  

• Configure the wifi credentials (check here for additional details)

    $ sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 
  

And add the following block at the end of the file, replacing SSID and password to match your network:

            network={
                ssid="The_SSID_of_your_wifi"
                psk="Your_wifi_password"
            }

• Clone the installer and start the installation

    $ git clone https://github.com/ttn-zh/ic880a-gateway.git ~/ic880a-gateway
    $ cd ~/ic880a-gateway
    $ sudo ./install.sh
  

• If you want to use the remote configuration option, please make sure you have created a JSON file named as your gateway EUI (e.g. B827EBFFFE7B80CD.json) in the Gateway Remote Config repository.

• Big Success! You should now have a running gateway in front of you!

Credits

These scripts are largely based on the awesome work by Ruud Vlaming on the Lorank8 installer.