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Cisco Wireless Gateway

Preparation

Before proceeding with the following steps, make sure you have connected the antennas and (PoE) ethernet interface as documented by the Cisco manual.

The following steps are executed using the Cisco Console interface, for which you need a special USB (connected to your computer) to RJ45 (connected to the gateway) console cable.

Note: the following instructions only reflect the configuration to get you started. Please consult the Cisco Wireless Gateway documentation for a complete manual.

Connect to console

You can use screen to connect to the Cisco (serial) Console. Example:

# replace /dev/ttyUSB with the serial device
screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

After the gateway has been fully started, you will see the following line:

Press RETURN to get started

Press RETURN and you will see Gateway> as prompt. For the configuration of the Cisco, you need to turn on the Privileged commands. To do so, enter the following command:

enable

The prompt should now have changed to Gateway#.

Firmware version

Enter the following command to display the installed firmware version of the gateway:

show version

Make sure that the version is (at least) 2.1.0. If your gateway has an older version installed, please update it first.

Upgrade

To upgrade the firmware, put the firmware image on an USB key, then insert the USB key into the gateway. In the following example, the firmware image is named ixm_mdm_i_k9-2.1.0.2.tar.gz.

Mount the USB key and change directory and list its content:

usb enable
cd usb:/
dir

The output should look simmilar to:

Directory of usb:/

  -rwx    87371566  Nov 17 2020 20:06:06  ixm_mdm_i_k9-2.1.0.2.tar.gz

To only update the firmware and keep the user data:

archive download-sw firmware /normal /save-reload ixm_mdm_i_k9-2.1.0.2.tar.gz

To upgrade the firmware and delete the user data:

archive download-sw firmware /factory /force-reload ixm_mdm_i_k9-2.1.0.2.tar.gz

Network setup

Enter the following commands to configure the Gateway network interface:

# Configure gateway from the terminal
configure terminal

# Select interface to configure
interface FastEthernet 0/1

To automatically assign an IP address using DHCP:

ip address dhcp

To assign a static IP address to the gateway:

ip address <ip-address> <subnet-mask>

To save the network interface configuration:

# Set interface specific description
description Ethernet

# Exit interface configuration
exit

# Exit configuration mode
exit

# Save the configuration
copy running-config startup-config

To test that the ethernet interface has been configured properly, you can use the ping ip command:

ping ip <ip-address>

Enable GPS

Enter the following commands to enable the GPS module:

# Configure gateway from the terminal
configure terminal

# Enable UBX data in UART output
gps ubx enable

# Exit configuration mode
exit

# Save the configuration
copy running-config startup-config

Radio status

Enter the following commands to make sure the radio is enabled:

show radio

When it is turned of, turn it on with the following commands:

# Configure gateway from the terminal
configure terminal

# Enable the radio
no radio off

# Exit configuration mode
exit

# Save the configuration
copy running-config startup-config

Common Packet Forwarder

The Cisco Wireless Gateway comes with a Common Packet Forwarder which is compatible with the Semtech Basic Station. In this case, the ChirpStack Gateway Bridge will not run on the gateway, but must be installed on a separate server, with the Basic Station backend enabled.

ChirpStack Gateway Bridge configuration

Below you will find a simplified configuration example for the EU868 band. Refer to the Configuration page for a full configuration example.

# Gateway backend configuration.
[backend]

# Backend type.
type="basic_station"

  # Basic Station backend.
  [backend.basic_station]

  # ip:port to bind the Websocket listener to.
  bind=":3001"

  # Region.
  region="EU868"

  # Minimal frequency (Hz).
  frequency_min=863000000

  # Maximum frequency (Hz).
  frequency_max=870000000

  # Concentrator configuration.
  # Note: this is defined twice as the Cisco gateway has two SX1301 chips.
  [[backend.basic_station.concentrators]]
    # Multi-SF channel configuration.
    [backend.basic_station.concentrators.multi_sf]
 
    # Frequencies (Hz).
    frequencies=[
      868100000,
      868300000,
      868500000,
      867100000,
      867300000,
      867500000,
      867700000,
      867900000,
    ]
  
    # LoRa STD channel.
    [backend.basic_station.concentrators.lora_std]
  
    # Frequency (Hz).
    frequency=868300000
  
    # Bandwidth (Hz).
    bandwidth=250000
  
    # Spreading factor.
    spreading_factor=7
  
    # FSK channel.
    [backend.basic_station.concentrators.fsk]
  
    # Frequency (Hz).
    frequency=868800000

  [[backend.basic_station.concentrators]]
    # Multi-SF channel configuration.
    [backend.basic_station.concentrators.multi_sf]
 
    # Frequencies (Hz).
    frequencies=[
      868100000,
      868300000,
      868500000,
      867100000,
      867300000,
      867500000,
      867700000,
      867900000,
    ]
  
    # LoRa STD channel.
    [backend.basic_station.concentrators.lora_std]
  
    # Frequency (Hz).
    frequency=868300000
  
    # Bandwidth (Hz).
    bandwidth=250000
  
    # Spreading factor.
    spreading_factor=7
  
    # FSK channel.
    [backend.basic_station.concentrators.fsk]
  
    # Frequency (Hz).
    frequency=868800000


# Integration configuration.
[integration]

# Payload marshaler.
marshaler="protobuf"

  # MQTT integration configuration.
  [integration.mqtt]
  # Event topic template.
  event_topic_template="eu868/gateway/{{ .GatewayID }}/event/{{ .EventType }}"

  # State topic template.
  #
  # States are sent by the gateway as retained MQTT messages (by default)
  # so that the last message will be stored by the MQTT broker. When set to
  # a blank string, this feature will be disabled. This feature is only
  # supported when using the generic authentication type.
  state_topic_template="eu868/gateway/{{ .GatewayID }}/state/{{ .StateType }}"

  # Command topic template.
  command_topic_template="eu868/gateway/{{ .GatewayID }}/command/#"


  # MQTT authentication.
  [integration.mqtt.auth]
  type="generic"

    # Generic MQTT authentication.
    [integration.mqtt.auth.generic]
    # MQTT servers.
    #
    # Configure one or multiple MQTT server to connect to. Each item must be in
    # the following format: scheme://host:port where scheme is tcp, ssl or ws.
    servers=[
      "tcp://127.0.0.1:1883",
    ]

Common Packet Forwarder configuration

Note: Common Packet Forwarder will use the GPS module to determine the country and region. In case cpf enable will result in an error that the region is undefined, make sure that the gateway is able to obtain a GPS position and try again.

Enter the following commands to configure the Common Packet Forwarder:

# Configure gateway from the terminal
configure terminal

# Enter the Common Packet Forwarder configuration
common-packet-forwarder profile

# Configure antenna gain and loss value
antenna 1 omni gain 4.3 loss 0.1

# Configure gateway ID
# Replace <GatewayID> with your gateway ID
gatewayid <GATEWAYID>

# Enable GPS usage
gps enable

# Configure IP and port to which the Common Packet Forwarder must connect
# Replace <IP> with the IP of the ChirpStack Gateway Bridge
# Replace <PORT> with the port on which ChirpStack Gateway Bridge is listening
ipaddr <IP> port <PORT>

# Enable Common Packet Forwarder
cpf enable

# Exit the (Common Packet Forwarder) configuration mode
exit
exit

# Save the configuration
copy running-config startup-config