Make LoRaWAN Server public

Setup and configuration
1

Hello all,

one of our customers would like to make their LoRaWAN network, which we built and runs over Chirpstack, public so that the citizens of the city can use this network. What needs to be done for this? I read about a packet broker via TTN.
Otherwise, is it sufficient to configure another data destination to the public TTN in the Mikrotik gateways used (LtAP LR8 kit as well as wAP)?

I am very pleased about answers. Many thanks in advance!

Greetings
Jan

2

I think it would be important to ask what their definition of public is :slight_smile: E.g. would it be allowing other users to use ChirpStack, or to share the LoRa gateways with other networks (e.g. TTN)?

3

Hey brocaar, thanks for your reply. Our preference would be for the LoRa gateways to be shared with TTN.

4

There are two options:

  1. Using passive-roaming: Which is a NS <> NS interface and requires a roaming-agreement configuration between the two NS providers. The packet-broker does support the passive-roaming implementation, as does ChirpStack. See also: ChirpStack | Packet Broker Documentation.
  2. A more simple solution: Sharing the GWs between ChirpStack and TTN. You could use for example GitHub - brocaar/chirpstack-packet-multiplexer: Forward Semtech packet-forwarder data to multiple servers.. Then your gateways are connected to the Packet Multiplexer, which forwards the data to both ChirpStack and TTN.

This is still lacking some documentation (partly because Iā€™m still working on improving this), but the following would also be possible:

  • Install the ChirpStack Concentratord on your gateways
  • Install the ChirpStack Gateway Bridge on it (with Concentratord backend) ā†’ ChirpStack
  • Install the ChirpStack UDP Forwarder on it ā†’ TTN

With the Concentratord, it is possible to run multiple forwarders simultaneously. A more light-weight replacement for the ChirpStack Gateway Bridge is going to be the ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder (GitHub - chirpstack/chirpstack-mqtt-forwarder: ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder is a forwarder which can be installed on the gateway to forward LoRa data over MQTT.).

2 Likes
5

Hi brocaar,

thank you very much for your reply.

I have two questions about the second option (packet multiplexer).

  1. Where is the packet multiplexer configured, in the gateway (LorixOne) or at Chirpstack?
  2. Do I understand correctly that citizens of the city can then use the LoRa network of the gateway, although it is only created in the private chirpstack? In other words, anyone can use this network, to put it simply?

Best regards,
JC

6

Hello again,

another question occurred to me last evening. A colleague of mine has installed or configured the Chirpstack Packet Multiplexer 2020 or 2021 at a gateway. Will the data still be forwarded to TTN V3 or do I have to redo and overwrite the configuration for this to work?
Or does it not affect TTN V2/V3 at all?

Best regards
JC

7

The Packet Multiplexer (Iā€™m not sure what 2020 or 2021 means) is a tool to send Semtech UDP data to multiple endpoints. Both TTN v2 and v3 support the UDP protocol, the same with ChirpStack v3 and v4. maybe you need to change the endpoints, but the Multiplexer versioning is not tied to a specific TTN or ChirpStack version.