OTBR commissioner - pskd or pskc

[mjkuwp94]

Hello,  

This is a repeat question but hopefully there is a simpler setup this time.

I have successfully run the otbr command line commissioner on my otbr raspberry pi.
However, using the analagous commissioner from the web gui has never worked.

The web gui commissioner has two fields.

1. Network Passphrase
which I take to be equivalent to "J01NME" in the guide except that obviously I will choose my own phrase.

and
2. Joiner PSKd* 
which is the expression that greatly confuses me.  The pre-shared key seems to be repeated ( I would enter the same expression in both fields) and I have nothing to enter here unless I use the PSKc like
a04509d13b9bee2ce871ceefbb0de3d8

so if I did not know better, I would think that the field on otbr web gui is mis-labeled.

after I generate this with the pskc tool in the otbr commissioner tools.  it is created with

the passphrase , the extpanid and the network name as inputs.

in either case, whatever I enter it always responds with a popup of "commission operation is failed"

I have successfully commissioned two devices with the command line so I do have a path for that but I am still puzzled why I cannot get the web gui to operate the same.

any thoughts?
thanks!

[Jonathan Hui]

Responses below:

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 7:44 AM mjkuwp94 <mjk...@gmail.com> wrote:

This is a repeat question but hopefully there is a simpler setup this time.

I have successfully run the otbr command line commissioner on my otbr raspberry pi.
However, using the analagous commissioner from the web gui has never worked.

The web gui commissioner has two fields.

1. Network Passphrase
which I take to be equivalent to "J01NME" in the guide except that obviously I will choose my own phrase.

I assume you are referring to the External Thread Commissioning guide? Yes, this guide uses J01NME as the example Commissioner Passphrase, which is used to derive the PSKc (Pre-Share Key Commissioner) and is what the border router uses to authenticate an external commissioner.

and
2. Joiner PSKd* 
which is the expression that greatly confuses me.  The pre-shared key seems to be repeated ( I would enter the same expression in both fields) and I have nothing to enter here unless I use the PSKc like
a04509d13b9bee2ce871ceefbb0de3d8

so if I did not know better, I would think that the field on otbr web gui is mis-labeled.

PSKd stands for "Pre-Shared Key Device" and is the joiner's device-specific code - the External Thread Commissioning guide uses J01NU5 in the example.

 

after I generate this with the pskc tool in the otbr commissioner tools.  it is created with

the passphrase , the extpanid and the network name as inputs.

Yes, the PSKc is derived from the Commissioner Passphrase, Extended PAN ID, and Network Name.

in either case, whatever I enter it always responds with a popup of "commission operation is failed"

I have successfully commissioned two devices with the command line so I do have a path for that but I am still puzzled why I cannot get the web gui to operate the same.

The web UI joins new devices by leveraging the OpenThread's commissioner CLI commands (see src/web/web-service/wpan_service.cpp#L437). You can follow the commissioning CLI quick start guide to see if that is successful.

--

Jonathan Hui

[mjkuwp94]

hi Jonathan, thanks so much.


Are there 3 repositories that need to be built on the OTBR (Raspberry Pi) to allow all the functions?

1. ot-br-posix

2. ot-commisioner

and
3. openthread?

I first built (1) based on the guide and today I added (2) which allowed me to commission at the command line using "ot-ctl".  I thought that openthread was for the Devices, not for the border router.

so now I am really confused.  I guess this is all so new, even though there are a lot of good guides - there isn't an obvious straight path through all of it : O

[Jonathan Hui]

The openthread/openthread repo is used on all devices that implement Thread, including the border router - the border router must also implement the Thread networking protocol and we use a common code base for that.

openthread/ot-br-posix already includes openthread/openthread as a submodule (see third_party/openthread).

--

Jonathan Hui

[mjkuwp94]

ok. The reason I asked is because the command
commissioner
did not do anything on my rpi - there is no command by that name.


pi@otbr2:~ $ commissioner
-bash: commissioner: command not found
pi@otbr2:~ $


The instructions are:

help

Usage: commissioner help

Print commissioner help menu.

[Jonathan Hui]

On OTBR, all OpenThread CLIs are issued through the ot-ctl command in the same way as they are done in External Thread Commissioning guide.

--

Jonathan Hui

[mjkuwp94]

ok,in that case I have already used the commissioner and that guide : ) 

everything looked good and worked and I got 2 devices onto a network and they show in the Topology map. A remaining problem is that the ping to the internet didn't work (the last step in that guide) and that is what I placed in a separate thread/message.

I am ok using the command line commissioner at this stage in the project.  It was frustrating me that the web interface looks so simple yet just plain fails to work with the information I entered. I am putting that aside for now.