Contents

Overview

The network between the LRV and controller is a standard 802.11b wireless network.  Both sides are implemented in Linux and use commodity networking hardware (PCMCIA on controller, CF on LRV).  These are pre-configured on a private, Ad-Hoc network but this can readily be changed.  Below are the details of the network configuration. 

Getting on the Network

To get on the network, you will need to use a wireless device and configure that device to participate in the Ad-Hoc wireless network the LRV and Controller use. 

Each LRV/Controller pair is on a seperate network with an ESSID that is made up of "LRV" plus the LRV's letter (each LRV is lettered).  For instance, LRV B and it's controller use the ESSID "LRVB".  This network uses WEP encryption and the 10-digit hex key is "ABCD123456". 

The LRV is on ip address 192.168.1.209 and the controller is on ip address 192.168.1.212.  When configuring your wireless device to get on the network, be sure to use a different IP address than either of these. 

If your wireless device is configured correctly, you should be able to ping either the LRV or LRVController (192.168.1.209 and 192.168.1.212) respectively.  If all this works, you are in good shape and now able to configure things on both devices. 

Logging In

Both the LRV and LRVController allow ssh login shells.  This is the easiest way to get on the device to make changes.  We use a terminal shell program called putty when in Windows environements and just a terminal shell and ssh when on a Linux platform. 

Log in with the user name "root" and password "rootme" to get a login. 

Networking

All the configuration for the wireless cards lives in two files on each device named:

The wireless card configuration file involves the mode (Managed or Ad-Hoc) and the password for the 802.11.b WEP encryption.  The network configuration file contains the IP address and gateway information for the devices. 

By default the LRV has a wireless.opts entry at the top that looks similar to:

To changed to infrastructure mode, this would be edited (using vi) to:

Similarily, by default the LRVController has a network.opts entry at the top that looks similar to:

To changed to infrastructure mode, this would only need to be edited (using vi) if a new IP address is needed:

This depends on the ip configuration of your managed network. 

Tips, Tricks, and Cautions

The networking configuration is pretty simple as it is contained in just two files on each side.  If the configuration is not changed properly, things get less easy.  For both sides, there is a way to open up the device (robot or controller) and get a serial console to the onboard Linux processor but this is much more involved.  To avoid having an unreachable robot or controller, it is a good idea to "dry-run" your configuration changes using the Linux commands iwconfig and ifconfig to make sure the configuration you are switching to will work.  If this all checks out, you can edit these files to make this happen at boot.  If not, you only need to reboot to get back to a stable and known configuration. 

Related Links:

Acroname Projects: LRV Configuration Files

How To: Configure a wireless card for the Stargate