Raspberry Pi3, IMST iC880a, and Raspbian

Hi all, I’m trying to implement a LoRa gateway + server on a raspberry pi 3 B with an IMST iC880a concentrator. I’m having some issues with the LoRa gateway full OS because I have to develop some code to handle and send data coming from sensors. I’v seen here https://github.com/brocaar/chirpstack-docs/blob/master/content/guides/raspberry-pi.md that it is possible to implement a lora gateway OS on raspbian. Although I do not understand if it is possible to install only the server on raspbian or even the gateway (handle the concentrator). Can someone help me?

Thanks a lot for your time.

When you use Raspbian as a starting point, you basically have a (Raspberry Pi based) Debian server, so you can use the Debian / Ubuntu (Quickstart Debian or Ubuntu - ChirpStack open-source LoRaWAN<sup>®</sup> Network Server) getting started guide.

Thanks a lot for your answer. I’ve read the guide but I don’t understand if the data coming from the concentrator are handled from the server automatically. Sorry, it’s the first time That I’m approaching to LoRa and to raspberry. Is it the gateway bridge that receives the data from the concentrator and send them to the server?

You need to configure and compile the LoRa gateway HAL (hardware abstraction layer) and Packet Forwarder. Then you need to configure the Packet Forwarder to forward the data to the ChirpStack Gateway Bridge.

An easier way to get started is to start with the ChirpStack Gateway OS image, that will provide you with a pre-configured environment with all the components needed. Or you can use it as a startingpoint to replicate the same setup using Raspbian.

Ok, i’ll try to figure out how to do that. I’ll compare the files on the ChirpStack Gateway OS image and the raspbian installation.
Thanks a lot.

Wher can I find the link to the HAL and packet forwarder git repositories? Is this link helpful? Have I to follow this guide? https://github.com/Lora-net/packet_forwarder/wiki/Use-with-Raspberry-Pi

After some tinkering, I succeeded to do this. Here is how: first, install the ttn-zh package as described here.

This will have the huge benefit of installing the packet forwarder and configure everything to work with the ic880a. Once you confirm that it works using TTN, use the Raspbian/Ubuntu documentation to install the full stack.

Now comes the magick bit: instead of posting the packets to TTN, configure the packet forwarder from ttn-zh to use the local server:

cd /opt/ttn-gateway/bin
sudo cp local_conf.json local_conf.json-TTN
vi local_conf.json 

and change this:
"servers": [ { "server_address": "127.0.0.1", "serv_port_up": 1700, "serv_port_down": 1700, "serv_enabled": true } ],

And finally, configure the rest via the web interface:
https://www.chirpstack.io/guides/first-gateway-device/

And it works! Chirpstack is an awesome software, by the way. Thanks guys!

You can use the Gateway os full to have the full stack running on your raspberry pi, it packages :

  • network-server
  • app-server
  • concentratord
  • gateway-bridge

Or you can deploy the gateway os lite, which only includes the concentratod and
the gateway-bridge that you have to configure to communicate with a remote network-server.

You can do the same using Ubuntu on raspberrypi, you have the choice to deploy all the stack on the raspberry or only the concentratord & gateway-bridge and the reste of the stack on other servers in examples.

All the components of the stack communicate in this way:
Lora-device —(LORA)—> Gateway (concentratod/ttn-gateway) —(packet forwarder)–> gateway-bridge —(misquitto/rabbit)–> network-server —> app-server

hello,
when i tired changing the local_conf_json it again goes to default server address router.eu.thethings.network can you tell how can i rectify this??
thanks and regards
manikandan v