Basic Station
The Basic Station from Semtech LoRa Basics™ is a second generation packet forwarder that allows to connect to a LoRa Network Server (LNS) in a robust and secured way.
The Basic Station is installed by default on all gateways with LORIX OS.
We recommend using the Basic Station over the UDP Packet Forwarder when supported by the Network Server.
Connect to specific cloud services
You may prefer the detailed specific guides to connect the Basic Station to famous cloud LoRaWAN network providers:
Metered connections
The Basic Station data transfer protocol is JSON. This type of data protocol uses a bit more bandwidth than binary data. If you are using a metered connection, please check the data usage.
Configuration
The Antenna type must be set before configuring the Basic Station
The Basic Station has two main configuration parts: configuration and network server.
Configuration and Update Server - CUPS
The configuration server allows you to dynamically update the LNS configuration. Please refer to the Basic Station and your network server provider documentation to know how to use and configure CUPS.
The CUPS configuration is not mandatory.
The Basic Station CUPS protocol has nothing to do with the printer CUPS protocol.
LoRaWAN Network Server - LNS
The Network Server will handle the gateway LoRaWAN packets. Please refer to your network server provider documentation to know how to use and configure LNS.
The LNS configuration can either be set statically through the GUI / CLI but it can also be updated dynamically if the CUPS is configured.
Configuration options details
Both CUPS and LNS configurations behave similarly. In any case, this configuration only depends on the LNS provider. If you don't know what to configure, ask you LNS provider for the Basic Station LNS endpoint settings. This is generally available in the LNS provider documentation for the base and encryption options, and in the gateway page or settings (in the LNS provider console) for the Gateway authentication settings.
Base options
The following two parameters are mandatory if the connectivity method is enabled.
| Option | Comment | Example value |
|---|---|---|
| Address | The server that has to be reached. Don't add any protocol to the URL. | eu1.cloud.thethings.network |
| Port | The server port that has to be reached. Numeric. | 8887 |
Encryption options
| Option | Comment | Example value |
|---|---|---|
| Secure TLC connection | Whether or not the connection should be secured by using TLS encryption. When this is enabled, all communication with the servers will be encrypted. If not enabled, your end nodes data is still invisible to network sniffers when using LoRaWAN as the packets are additionally encrypted. Whether this should be enabled or not depends on the security constraints of the LNS server. | |
| Server authentication | When TLS is enable, server authentication is mandatory. The Basic Station will authenticate the server to see if it is the one it claims to be. To authenticate, a source of trust is used to verify the authentication data, it's called a root certificate. You have two possibilities: | |
Use local root certificates The source of trust is the certificates of major trustfull companies of the Cloud (e.g. Let's Encrypt, Amazon, ...). This is the recommended setup if the server is a Cloud service that offers such a globally trusted certificate. This is the same as what your web browser does when accessing the Internet. | ||
Use certificate file Upload the certificate given by the CUPS/LNS provider. It will be use as the single source of trust. This is the recommended setup for company on-premise CUPS/LNS server installation. Ask the person who installed the CUPS/LNS server for the public root certificate. | root-ca.pem |
Client authentication options
| Option | Comment | Example value |
|---|---|---|
| Gateway authentication | Whether or not the gateway will authenticate itself to the server. Whether this should be enabled or not depends on the security constraints of the LNS server. | |
Gateway credentials (text not shown on GUI) | Two authentication methods are available. Choose the one provided by your CUPS/LNS provider. | |
Use certificate and key A public certificate and its corresponding private key are used. Both files must be uploaded. | gateway-certificate.pem gateway-key.key | |
Use token A string token is used. | NNSXS.QJOEIUO36SPPTOLMQNITORZYG7NJQ4H6CAH2V4Q.VYTJ66LUWINDBOFLASDIRD7A75HGGZ5CKMR4FLKXYDGCKWDZMECQ |
Basic Station configuration
The Basic Station configuration it automatically defined regarding the region and the antenna type. You should not change this configuration.
The station configuration is located at /etc/opt/lora-basic-station/.