CLI user friendly

[gmidia]

i would request a user friendly cli which a cleint can also use to configure the unit. Which when the ? is typed gives the options available like say ssid scan, ssid mode as opposed to web based
midia

[salomao.oldenburg]

Sorry disagreeing with you, but what you describe as user friendly cli interface is, in fact, an annoying and limitating feature.
The plain bash terminal is the best practice Ubiquiti can do, since it gives to the user total freedom to customize the equipment's behavior. Adding the SDK source code distribution, makes Ubiquiti 100% GPL compliant.
Other manufacturers put custom and limitated cli shells mostly to hide the fact they're using GPL operating systems and to limit user's access to system resources than to provide ease of use.
If you need a user friendly interface, AirOS provides a built-in web server so you can do all configurations you need through your web browser.
In the other hand, i suggest you to learn Linux if you want to use the provided bash text based interface. Knowledge is power. Be powerful.

[WHT]

I agree with salomao...

Twenty years ago, I said computer literacy was reduced to a "double click on the icon mentality".

Presenting a black screen with white text and requiring an uneducated user to type something in is the furthest from a "user friendly" interface for the client user.

[GovWireless]

Let's take that discussion a bit further. Right now the RouterStation's I just received are not configured with the GPL compliant Open-WRT, if you want to compare apples to apples. Why did UBNT make so many changes to kernel and not document the changes that were made and provide it with the RouterStation. This is the sad part, the RouterStation shipped all 4 of them in a plain brown box, after we have been waiting for three months to get them (we called a few days ago). All the board includes is a fancy one sided logo sheet with the IP address of 192.168.1.20 the login of root and default password of ubnt. Well now that they have changed something, telnet is off, so SSH is required for access, that is not documented because they do not provide any documents with the board. The CLI has many changes from the base Open-WRT CLI, most of the directories are the same, the JFFS2 is now only JFFS, package update is not ipkg it is opkg ad the whole string of commands is strewn throughtout the directory structure. For a wireless company, they also chose to disable wireless by default (I guess since it does not come with any wireless cards). Wireless modes of operation are also limited be sure to check out what type of atheros cards you can use in what combination with each other in what type of mode. Two things that help the most, linux command knowledge with vi,cat,ls and all the basic commands and knowing where the files are and how they are called.

[UBNT-Mike.Taylor]

GovWireless,

RouterStation shipped based on OpenWRT trunk revision 13677, which is on the road to Kamikaze (OpenWRT 8.09).

We made trivial changes to the platform support code, and some bug fixes -- which we contributed upstream.

OpenWRT team wrote AR71xx kernel code and stubbed out the routerstation platform code. See juhosg commit https://dev.openwrt.org/changeset/13676/trunk.

We submitted a fix for our flash chips. See https://dev.openwrt.org/changeset/13676/trunk (by juhosg, using patch from Jonas / UBNT).

We based our current RouterStation image on r13677, see https://dev.openwrt.org/browser/trunk?rev=13677 for details.

There is nothing proprietary at all in RouterStation. All patches were submitted upstream and incorporated and improved upon in many cases.

RouterStation should be fully supported by Kamikazi (OpenWRT 8.09) when it ships. All the necessary patches are already included in 8.09 RC2.

If you like, you can build a perfectly fine RouterStation image from the RC2 snapshot, or the HEAD revision of OpenWRT trunk.

There are no UBNT proprietary bits or changes in there except for the default password and IP address, which we made like other UBNT products to keep things simple.

I'm not sure where you are coming from, but I'd be happy to hear what you think we changed. Please reference http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Packages section 2.1 (under the heading Managing Packages / ipkg vs opkg). Among other things you will find this quote:

"Older versions of OpenWrt use ipkg, while recent versions use opkg. The latter is essentially a drop in replacement that addresses a number of issues. Documentation in the OpenWrt wiki is inconsistent, so almost all references of either simply mean "the package manager on the system."


BTW - here are some of the patches that included UBNT contributions:

https://dev.openwrt.org/changeset/13682/trunk -- [tools] firmware-utils/mkfwimage: add RouterStation support (based on a patch by Jonas <jonas at ubnt.com>)

https://dev.openwrt.org/changeset/13697/trunk -- [ar71xx] improve Ubiquiti RouterStation support (based on a patch by Jonas <jmajau at ubnt.com>)

https://dev.openwrt.org/changeset/13758/trunk -- [ar71xx] generate firmware image for the Ubiquiti RouterStation board (based on a patch by Jonas <jmajau at ubnt.com>)

I can send you the .config file we used for RS, although upstream codebase has made improvements since then so you would need to use make oldconfig first I think. Personally, I would start with 'make menuconfig' and build from clean sources.

Let me know if you have something specific you are concerned about or would like to know and I'll try to clear up any confusion.

All the UBNT developers made it a point to embrace OpenWRT for RouterStation rather than attempting to change it, add to it, or replace bits of it. OpenWRT is a pretty cool toolkit as it is. We are contributing hardware and patches to see that it's better on RouterStation. ;-)

Cheers,

Mike Taylor

[UBNT-Mike.Taylor]

GovWireless,

Please see this discussion for why OpenWRT comes with wireless disabled: http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=15758 .

All the other comments about filesystem layout and command locations are all standard openwrt behavior I'm afraid. We didn't make any changes there either.

Thanks,

Mike Taylor

[UBNT-Mike.Taylor]

GovWireless,

I also do not know why the mount point chosen was called /jffs but it is in fact using the jffs2 filesystem for the actual flash device

root@OpenWrt:/# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on /rom type squashfs (ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=14920k)
tmpfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,size=512k)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=600)
mini_fo:/tmp/root on /tmp/root type mini_fo (rw)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/mtdblock3 on /jffs type jffs2 (rw)
mini_fo:/jffs on / type mini_fo (rw)