Connecting to the gateway

The SenArch ARCH-1 LoRaWAN Gateway provides multiple connectivity options for initial configuration and ongoing management. This guide covers both WiFi and LTE connection methods to accommodate different deployment scenarios.

The gateway can power off either the WiFi or LTE modules to save power. WiFi is always prioritized when available, while LTE is enabled for remote deployments.

The gateway attempts to connect to all configured WiFi networks for one minute after powering on. If WiFi connection is successful, it is used for network access.

If no WiFi connection is established during the first minute, the LTE modem is enabled and the gateway switches to cellular connectivity.

Note: When the gateway operates in LTE mode, the WiFi interface is disabled. Local connection is only possible through WiFi while the gateway is connected to a WiFi network. Once the gateway switches to LTE, remote access is available exclusively through the VPN tunnel.

WiFi access

Set up WiFi hotspot

To connect the gateway to WiFi, create a hotspot using your phone or laptop with the following parameters:

Parameter Value
SSID senarch
Password senarch123
Frequency 2.4 GHz
Protocol 802.11 b/g/n (WiFi 5 is not supported)

Connect your laptop to this hotspot, then power on the gateway by connecting the gateway battery.

SSH Access

Once the gateway is powered on and connected to a WiFi network, it will appear in the network’s client list with the name archxxxx, where xxxx denotes the 4 digit serial number. Locate the device in your router or hotspot client list to identify its IP address.

Open a terminal on your computer and type:

ssh root@<gateway_ip>

You will be prompted for a password. The default password is senarch123

Note: For security reasons we highly recommend changing the password from the factory default after the first login, see here for how to do it.

Change the expected WiFi network

By default, the gateway connects through the temporary hotspot (senarch/senarch123) for the first configuration. After this initial step, you can configure the gateway to use any other WiFi network that is available at your site.

To change the configured network log into the gateway and edit /data/gateway-conf.json. You can either replace the default SSID and password fields, or add an additional network to the config file. Restart the gateway for the changes to take effect.

nano /data/gateway-conf.json

The WiFi network must be 2.4 GHz, 802.11 b/g/n supported. WiFi 5 is not supported.

LTE access

After the LTE setup and VPN setup are completed, you can access the gateway remotely over LTE. This requires both the gateway and your computer to be connected to the same OpenVPN server.

  1. Connect to the gateway via WiFi and SSH.

  2. Read the VPN-assigned IP address of the gateway by the command ifconfig. Look for the inet addr field in the tun0 interface in the output.

  3. Disable the WiFi hotspot.

  4. Reboot the gateway, then wait some minutes until the gateway switches to LTE.

  5. Connect your computer to the VPN network using an OpenVPN client.

  6. Open a terminal and connect to the gateway through SSH using the VPN IP address.

# Example ifconfig output
tun0     Link encap:UNSPEC  
         inet addr:192.168.255.67

# ssh connection 
ssh root@192.168.255.67

Success: if you can log in and see the gateway shell, the LTE + VPN connection is working. Use exit to close the SSH session when finished.

Next steps