Firmware Backups and Device SSH

[Colton Conor]

We finally got OpenWISP setup using the OpenSSL variant.

We are hoping to be able to manage 4G LTE routers that do no have public IPv4 IP address, so there is no easy way to get to LUCI remotely.

It looks like OpenWISP is great for configuration management, but what about device management?

 

Can you reboot a device remotely?

Can you ssh into the device remotely through the OpenSSL tunnel?

Can you upgrade firmware remotely?

If openwisp is not good for this task, then what do you recommend? 

[Oliver Kraitschy]

Hi Colton,

On Wed, Jan 15, 2020 at 03:15:45PM -0600, Colton Conor wrote:

> Can you reboot a device remotely?
> Can you ssh into the device remotely through the OpenSSL tunnel?

A basic implementation to use ssh to execute commands on the device has
been done, right now only to update the configuration instantly:

https://github.com/openwisp/openwisp-controller/issues/30

Further usecases like rebooting a device or executing other commands need
to be implemented.

> Can you upgrade firmware remotely?

This is a similar usecase which has to be implemented.

>
> If openwisp is not good for this task, then what do you recommend?

I implemented firmware upgrades through openwisp-config with the help of a
hook script:

https://github.com/openwisp/openwisp-config/issues/83

This is what we are using right now.

Greetings,

Oliver

[augustus meyer]

Can you reboot a device remotely?

Can you ssh into the device remotely through the OpenSSL tunnel?

Can you upgrade firmware remotely?

I did quite a few custom hotspot systems, usually based on openwrt (but dd-wrt, too).  

All of them contained all the functions, you are asking for. Cause required for hotspot installs, which are remote, usually.

Or even mobile hotspots, in public transportation system.

Frankly speaking, I consider OpenWISP to be overkill for the few config mods, my clients required for their hotspots.

Change of SSID or channel usually were sufficient, which can be done using various simple methods. 

[Federico Capoano]

On Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 4:16:00 PM UTC-5, Colton Conor wrote:

... 

Can you upgrade firmware remotely?

We're working on a solution that allows performing mass upgrades: https://github.com/openwisp/openwisp-firmware-upgrader

Best regards

Federico

[Federico Capoano]

Another update on these subjects.

The firmware upgrade module is now available in the ansible installer: https://github.com/openwisp/ansible-openwisp2/#enabling-the-firmware-upgrader-module

There's a new "send commands" feature which I deployed several months ago to a couple installations and is working great: https://github.com/openwisp/openwisp-controller/pull/421

It will land in the next major release of OpenWISP.

It supports reboot, change password and custom commands by default.

It supports also adding new types of commands which can be called directly from the web UI (say one has a recurring custom command, that can become an action visible in the menu), although this involves a bit of programming.

In the future we'll add support for sending commands to group of devices.

Best regards
Federico Capoano