hello!
is it possible to have chirpstack network server and gateway on same rpi on Ubuntu 24?
I have rpi4b + LoRaWAN Hat 1302
and installed CS NS as per this doc:
https://www.chirpstack.io/docs/getting-started/debian-ubuntu.html
but for configuring RPI Hat I need use Gateway part of Chirpstack which is supposed to be on separate device under Gateway OS.
So I wonder if it is possible to have these both part on the same Ubuntu system.
Please advice.
Typically going through the Ubuntu install is not what you want to do on the RPI
Download the full Chirpstack Gateway OS image to get both gateway and NS capabilities.
https://www.chirpstack.io/docs/chirpstack-gateway-os/image-types.html
Just make sure your PI is in the supported hardware list.
If thats not applicable for you you can download Concentratord and the MQTT forwarder yourself onto your Ubuntu install. Will be a considerable amount more configuration and manual work but should function.
thank you)
but
based on OpenWRT.
I dont know why it has been decided that OpenWRT is better for Gateway OS…
And I hope that its possible to install all components of GW on Ubuntu.
do you mean that I need download some sources and build it manually?
where I can find it? is there some instructions?
I actually happened to download it from source a few weeks ago to get the newest release on my CS GW OS:
Here’s the MQTT forwarder as well:
Out of curiosity what are your gripes with openWRT, I’m not too familiar with the differences between Operating Systems.
I have no any gripes)
But isn’t it better when you have several different options?
I just want to continue use my RPI with ubuntu and install “full stack” of Chirpstack to check it with different LoRaWAN HAT’s as Gateways for LoraWAN Nodes.
As for OpenWRT - I use it a lot and really like how it works in “router mode”
but real linux OS still better for using.
Fair enough, I guess Brocaars decision to go with it was likely just because of how lightweight it is.
just wonder - has no one really compiled these packages for Ubuntu yet?
Perhaps one of these binaries?
https://www.chirpstack.io/docs/chirpstack-concentratord/downloads.html
It starts to get messy as those installs are meant for gateways but I think it would be possible.
From what I can tell and have seen nobody does the full stack on Ubuntu.
yes, Im also saw these binaries…
but in Gateway OS it is possible to use web interface for configuring it:
Configure Concentratord
and on Ubuntu there will be no such opportunity.
seems I would need to see how it implemented on OpenWRT…
It should be somewhat straightforward to setup Chirpstack on a Raspberry Pi. Running Ubuntu is not that relevant for the task.
I setup Chirpstack on a custom gateway, running custom Linux where the Lora concentrator runs alongside chirpstack. These are the steps I took:
1 - You will need the following binaries/applications, all of them will run on raspberry pi:
Lora concentrator software:
Choose your Lora concentrator software (Semtech UDP packet forwarder, basicstation or concentratord).
You will need to understand how each work. For example they use SPI port for communication. You need to know how to write their configuration files for settings and selecting SPI port. Semtech packet forwarder uses UDP for communication and basicstation uses websockets.
Chirpstack gateway bridge
This application is responsible for getting packets from the concentrator application and forwarding to chirpstack using MQTT through a broker. You will also need to understand about its configuration file the chirpstack-gateway-bridge.toml.
GitHub - chirpstack/chirpstack-gateway-bridge: ChirpStack Gateway Bridge abstracts Packet Forwarder protocols into Protobuf or JSON over MQTT.
Mosquitto broker
The broker is responsible for handling messages to/from chirpstack-gateway-bridge/chirpstack
Postgres/SQLite
Chirpstack can work with both postgres and sqlite databases. I would chose sqlite since its more lightweight for embedded system like raspberry pi.
Redis server
Chirpstack itself
You also need to understand chirpstack configuration file (toml file)
GitHub - chirpstack/chirpstack: ChirpStack open-source LoRaWAN Network Server
1 - Install all those binaries on Raspberry Pi. For redis, sqlite and mosquitto you probably can use “apt install”
sudo apt install mosquitto redis-server libsqlite3-dev
For semtech packet forwarder or basicstation, you need to compile them yourself.
For chirpstack you can either download armv7 binary or cross compile with sqlite support. For the gateway bridge, you can download pre compiled binary from chirpstack website.
https://www.chirpstack.io/docs/chirpstack-gateway-bridge/downloads.html
https://www.chirpstack.io/docs/chirpstack/downloads.html
2 - Configure everything to run locally on 127.0.0.1
That is why I’m using OpenWrt 
OpenWrt provides an unified configuration interface, which makes easy to provide a web-interface (using LuCI). This system also handles reloading of services when changes are made (either through the web-interface or using the uci CLI utility).
An other reason for choosing OpenWrt is that these are more firmware images. E.g. there is one “ROM” partition which contains the firmware and on top of that there is an “overlayFS” which contains the changes made by the user (like config changes, additional software that has been installed). A factory-reset therefore means flushing the “overlayFS” partition (e.g. executing firstboot && reboot) after which you have a clean state. A firmware update means that the “ROM” partition gets completely overwritten. Therefore the only difference between an update and a clean install of the new version is if the "
overlayFS" partition is retained or not.
And then of course OpenWrt has a lower footprint and it optimized for low or no periodic writes to the flash storage. This made it possible to also port the Gateway OS to some of the RAK gateways.
Anyway, you should be able to install the binaries yourself on a Raspberry Pi Debian / Ubuntu environment, but that means you need to do a bit more work.