Rename to ChirpStack announcement

Announcements
1

First, a HUGE thank you from the LoRa Server project developers and sponsors. Your willingness to use the software for a multitude of purposes and regularly provide feedback has made this server what it is today. The popularity it has gained is only due to your continued support and belief in this project. On behalf of the project’s sponsors, especially CableLabs, and myself, I want to personally thank you for your support, contributions and continuous feedback.

As you probably have guessed already, ChirpStack is the new name for what was known as the LoRa Server project. Since the start, in 2016, the project has gained a lot of traction and is now being used by thousands of users around the world. Unfortunately due to unknown trademark conflicts when we started this project, we must change the name as “LoRa” is a trademark registered by Semtech.

We regret any inconvenience this might cause you and have tried to make this migration as easy as possible. If you experience any significant challenges with this migration, please continue the great feedback on the forum. Also, if you have any questions or comments about this naming change, please feel free to provide that feedback on the forum.

Below you will find a summary of the steps you need to take to migrate forward.

Debian / Ubuntu packages

When installing the latest update, the migration will be made for you automatically. It will also create a symlink for the init or systemd scripts and old configuration path to the new locations, so that scripts depending on the old naming will continue to work.

What you still need to do is update the apt repository from artifacts.loraserver.io to artifacts.chirpstack.io. You will find this configuration in a directory called /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. The name of this file is not important, but its content is. Make sure that it contains the following configuration:

# ChirpStack repository
deb https://artifacts.chirpstack.io/packages/3.x/deb stable main

Package renaming

  • loraserver → chirpstack-network-server
  • lora-app-server → chirpstack-application-server
  • lora-gateway-bridge → chirpstack-gateway-bridge
  • lora-geo-server → chirpstack-geolocation-server

Configuration files

Configuration files can be found under:

/etc/{PACKAGE_NAME}/{PACKAGE_NAME}.toml

Docker images

Unfortunately the Docker Hub does not support redirecting. Migrating to the new images will take two steps.

Update Docker image

  • loraserver/loraserver → chirpstack/chirpstack-network-server
  • loraserver/lora-app-server → chirpstack/chirpstack-application-server
  • loraserver/lora-gateway-bridge → chirpstack/chirpstack-gateway-bridge
  • loraserver/lora-geo-server → chirpstack/chirpstack-geolocation-server

Note that you will only find the latest version under the chirpstack/chirpstack- naming!

Update configuration path

When using the configuration files for configuring your containers, you must update the directory into the configuration gets mounted.

  • /etc/loraserver → /etc/chirpstack-network-server
  • /etc/lora-app-server → /etc/chirpstack-application-server
  • /etc/lora-gateway-bridge → /etc/chirpstack-gateway-bridge
  • /etc/lora-geo-server → /etc/chirpstack-geolocation server

You must also rename the names of the configuration files, so that:

  • loraserver.toml → chirpstack-network-server.toml
  • lora-app-server.toml → chirpstack-application-server.toml
  • lora-gateway-bridge.toml → chirpstack-gateway-bridge.toml
  • lora-geo-server.toml → chirpstack-geolocation-server.toml

Note that you must make this change when migrating to the chirpstack/chirpstack- named Docker images.

We have tried our best to update all documentation pages. If you spot an error or reference to to the old naming, please let us know or even better, create a pull-request to fix the mistake!

Again, thank you for your support and use of this project! A special thanks to the sponsors. Without their continued financial support, technical input and advisement from the beginning of this project, it would not have gained the functional capability it has today.

With ChirpStack, we will continue to work diligently to provide functional compliance to the LoRa Alliance specifications.

15 Likes
3

Thank you for all your hard work.

4 Likes
4

:+1::grinning::tada:

1 Like
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Thanks a lot for your huge work!

1 Like
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Really thank you for this amaizing work, the “open source” term really makes sense in this project

3 Likes
7

Some advice would be gratefully received. I am running LoRa server version 2.8.2, gateway-bridge 2.71 and app server 2.6.1.

I had intended to change the LoRa server repository and update them to v3.x

Is it safe to update these LoRa server v2.x components using the ChirpStack repository, or should you update to v3.x using the LoRa server repository first?

8

It doesn’t matter as the old domain is redirecting to the new domain, however it is better to rename it in your apt config (as stated in the announcement). When doing an sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade from the LoRa Server repository (3.x version), you will automatically be migrated to the ChirpStack packages :slight_smile: The latest loraserver, lora-app-server, lora-gateway-bridge and lora-geo-server are “empty” packages with a dependency on the related ChirpStack package (+ some migration scripts that are triggered on a post-install).

Before upgrading, please refer to the changelogs of all components in case there are any important steps to take. Also, make a backup first so you can always roll back in case needed :slight_smile:

2 Likes
9

The new name is very charisma. Congratulations, good name.
Already the old name was not very cool, it was very standard because it bears the name of technology.

Thank you for improving to this day. Before we met your project, we wrote and used our own servers. When we switched to your software, we jobs accelerated.

We have now received investment from the UK and are structuring. Once completed, we are planning to meet for sponsorship.

3 Likes
10

Thanks @brocaar for all your hard work on this - LoRaServer.io enabled us to provide our customers with a fully scalable, secure stack via MQTT+TLS when all that was available to us elsewhere was UDP.

I’m really looking forward to helping Chirpstack grow, and to help prove that OpenSource rather than trademark disputes over products that actually improve brand awareness is the way forward for the Internet of Things.

4 Likes
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Thanks for all your hard work @brocaar. I have managed to update the Ubuntu packages and everything seems to be working fine, except that the Chirpstack Application Server GUI still uses the old LoRaServer logo.

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That might be a caching issue :slight_smile: Also make sure the process chirpstack-application-server is running on your machine.

3 Likes
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Thank you @brocaar, for your valuable contribution and amazing hard work!:grinning:

We are also trying to update & while upgrading, even we are facing a similar issue. Including the last seen for gateways, the database has also not been updated from loraserver_as to chirpstack_as. How do we manage that?

Thanks again!

14

Check the package versions that are installed on your system. When you upgraded, from which versions to which versions did you update? Did you check the chirpstack-application-server process as I described above?

the database has also not been updated from loraserver_as to chirpstack_as. How do we manage that?

The update doesn’t rename databases for you, there is no technical need for it :slight_smile: You still do it yourself if you want.

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We upgraded lora-app-server v3.3.0 to v3.5.0 , loraserver v3.2.0 to v3.4.0 & lora-gateway-bridge v3.3.0 to v3.4.0.

Yes, we did check it in journalctl and the services were up and running of the chirpstack-app-server.
But in the logs of chirpstack-network-server, we are finding following errors, probably the reason why we are not getting the device and gateway last seen…

Nov 04 12:45:18 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:18Z" level=info msg="finished unary call with code OK" ctx_id=601dc9ee-92c8-484e-acf6-e9bc537354cb grpc.code=OK grpc.method=GetGateway grpc.service=ns.NetworkServerService grpc.start_time="2019-11-04T12:45:18Z" grpc.time_ms=1.437 peer.address="10.0.20.11:43404" span.kind=server system=grpc
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="gateway/mqtt: uplink frame received" gateway_id=506f980000000777 uplink_id=97cc2c2b-8d03-4a34-af5a-d4b07e35928b
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="uplink: frame(s) collected" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d mtype=ConfirmedDataUp uplink_ids="[97cc2c2b-8d03-4a34-af5a-d4b07e35928b]"
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="device gateway rx-info meta-data saved" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d dev_eui=506f980000000404
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="device-session saved" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d dev_addr=00000404 dev_eui=506f980000000404
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="sent uplink meta-data to network-controller" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d dev_eui=506f980000000404
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=error msg="finished client unary call" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d error="rpc error: code = Unimplemented desc = unknown service as.ApplicationServerService" grpc.code=Unimplemented grpc.duration="425.715µs" grpc.method=HandleUplinkData grpc.service=as.ApplicationServerService span.kind=client system=grpc
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=error msg="publish uplink data to application-server error" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d error="rpc error: code = Unimplemented desc = unknown service as.ApplicationServerService"
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="gateway/mqtt: publishing gateway command" command=down downlink_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d gateway_id=506f980000000777 qos=0 topic=gateway/506f980000000777/command/down
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="device-session saved" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d dev_addr=00000404 dev_eui=506f980000000404
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="downlink-frames saved" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d token=52579
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="backend/gateway: downlink tx acknowledgement received" downlink_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d gateway_id=506f980000000777
Nov 04 12:45:22 siotel-prod-gj-13 chirpstack-network-server[19126]: time="2019-11-04T12:45:22Z" level=info msg="sent downlink meta-data to network-controller" ctx_id=cd631d58-a9ec-4e36-8045-b346010f573d
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That looks like a misconfiguration somewhere. It looks quite simmilar to Problem with LoraServer and LoraAppServer API?.

1 Like
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I got some questions why ChirpStack. These pages give a bit more background behind the LoRa modulation and what a chirp is:

2 Likes
18

Hi @brocaar, we checked and the entry in the routing_profile table in loraserver_ns database is correct and all the host:port in the chirpstack-app-server configuration file are as follows:

 [application_server.api]
# ip:port to bind the api server
 bind="0.0.0.0:8001"

public_host="localhost:8001"

 [application_server.external_api]
  # ip:port to bind the (user facing) http server to (web-interface and REST / $
  bind="0.0.0.0:8080"

[join_server]
# ip:port to bind the join-server api interface to
bind="0.0.0.0:8003"

chirpstack network-server configuration file is set to:

[network_server.api]
  # ip:port to bind the api server
  bind="0.0.0.0:8001"

 [join_server.default]
  # hostname:port of the default join-server
  #
  # This API is provided by LoRa App Server.
  server="http://localhost:8003"

We cannot see the gateways and applications page on chirpstack-app-server GUI. Do we have to delete the network-server entity on chirpstack-app-server GUI and register everything again?

19

Also, the link for ansible-playbook given on https://www.chirpstack.io/guides/ansible-vagrant/ , appears to be broken as I could not see the repo on github. It would be very kind of you if you could provide us with the same. :slightly_smiling_face:

20

Somebody reported (and fixed) a bug in the init script, which might cause this due to a service restart issue. Stay tuned for a bugfix release :slight_smile:

1 Like