Location: Jitsi
Date and Time: Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 5:30pm-8:00pm
Scribe: You
Roll Call: RussellSenior,ThomasSuckow,JasonBergstrom,TedBrunner,SteveTree
Agenda
- Pick location for next weekly
- Encountered someone who wants to get involved with Personal Telco, who lives in N Portland, so some place convenient for them is good for an indoctrination session.
- Node notes:
NodeEleven -- there was an outage in mid-December, by the time Russell actually arrived to check, the upstream internet gateway had been rebooted and that fixed the outage. They use a Verizon Wireless 5G home gateway thingie.
NodeKlickitat -- Russell has noticed that some of the Archer C7-based mesh nodes have a habit of becoming unreachable after several days. Nothing obvious in dmesg, can usually connect locally and reboot, which fixes mesh link failure. Luckily, there isn't a lot of active use of these devices at the present time.
NodeEdie -- still needs Russell to configure a device to install, slacker!
OpenWrt shenanigans:
- Russell has added a script (/usr/bin/wiki-info.sh) to PTP devices that generates wiki-pastable network configuration data. He updated a bunch of node pages December 16-17, updating outdated information that had been lingering.
Over the holidays, Russell managed to hunt down the bug that was causing the Soekris net4826 (SC1100-based) boards to hang during a warm boot, requiring a power cycle to recover. After the recently decommissioned net4826 at NodeFirstUnitarian, there is only one actively used net4826 in our network: the one at MississippiWest. It gives us some trouble when ssh'ing because of deprecated protocols, so it would be nice to update, and now we can.
- Russell has been working on the reverse engineering the Realtek-based switches PoE control protocol. Currently has a Zyxel GS1900-10HP v2 splay out on a desk with a logic analyzer attached, to try to make heads and/or tails of the protocol. It is different, although similar to a protocol used to control Broadcom PSE (Power Sourcing Equipment) chips on version 1 boards. The version 2 boards use a different PSE, manufactured by Realtek themselves. The same protocol almost certainly applies to the version 2 Engenius EWS2910P. Some preliminary work occurred two years ago, trying to poke up those involved to finish off the support.
Russell gave a PLUG talk on January 2 covering the flashing of the Linksys E8450. In the process encountered a bug in an early production version that had trouble warm booting. Eventually discovered in a 6000+ post thread on the OpenWrt forum, that it was a known problem with a relatively simple fix, setting a minimum CPU speed of 600MHz, which apparently keeps the particularly sensitive memory adequately powered during the warm boot. Later production versions don't have the problem.
- P.O. Box -- we were notified that if we renew by January 19, we can get last years rates (circa $200) for our P.O. Box. If we renew after that, we'll pay next year's rates, certainly higher. Discussion.
Your Item Here
Notes
- New potential member interest in meeting in North Portland, meet at the Nighthawk (Interstate and Rosa Parks) next week.
- Node notes:
NodeEleven - was down, came back up. As of this morning down again, Russell will contact.
NodeKlickitat - Archer C7 nodes, issue with mesh connectivity to distant nodes (still up from local nodes).
NodeEdie - Russell will build.
NodeWhet - Ted will visit
- OpenWRT updates:
- Script to collect technical node information to paste into wiki.
One Soekris net4826 in our network: MississippiWest, issue with old ssh, lagging due to inability to build (due to suspend state patch), now can move forward
- Zyxel GS1900-10HP v2 PoE switch, PSE v2 has different hardware, which is not compatible with v1 serial protocol.
- Russell gave a talk at the last PLUG meeting on putting OpenWRT on Linksys E8450. Memory speed issue in early version causing an issue with warm booting.
P.O. Box can be renewed at last year's rate by January 19th. We have used the address on FuTel checks (and a bunch of other areas).
- Business cards - Russell has more volunteer cards (will bring a box to the next meeting), Ted was going to look at who would print more board cards, Russell may contact Chris Chen.
- Question about whether the most recent grant money is considered as taxable.
FuTel, we need to find the reporting requirements for the recent grant. Karl needs to also give us paperwork on the disbursment of funds.