Introduced consistent preferences for external LoRa FEM RX and TX gain settings in NodePrefs. Updated companion MyMesh to apply these settings during initialization and transmission. Added unit tests to verify the round-trip serialization of these new preferences.
Two findings from review, both real, both mine.
The CLI could read secrets the portal has never exposed. CommonCLI splits its
surface by CALLER, not by command: a serial caller (sender_timestamp 0, physical
access) reads secrets in plaintext, a remote one gets "******** (serial only)".
Its own comments say so — "Serial only (WiFi creds grant LAN access); remote
sees set/unset". execCommand passes 0, which is what makes `erase`, `stats-*`
and `set freq` reachable at all, and with it the terminal inherited the serial
console's plaintext answers for an HTTP request: `get prv.key` returned this
node's identity, `get wifi.pwd` the operator's network.
Worse in setup mode, which authenticates by proximity to an open AP — and `start
webconfig ap` can be run on an already-configured node, so the secrets are real
by then, not blank.
I had reasoned that the AP was the trust boundary either way because the wizard
can already rewrite these. That conflated two capabilities: replacing a WiFi
password does not reveal the current one, and replacing an identity does not
reveal the existing private key. /api/config has always masked these on read
(wcIsSecretKey); the CLI simply broke that rule. Now only the READ is masked —
the command surface stays whole — in CommonCLI's own words, keeping the
set/unset signal that is the useful part.
Onboarding could also skip the mandatory password. handleConfigPost refuses to
arm a reboot during initial setup without one; the CLI only warned in the
browser, which a pasted script or a direct POST ignores, so a node could reboot
onto the LAN still holding the factory credential. Same rule now applies at
POST. It is satisfied by a `password` command anywhere in the session rather
than only in the same request, so the natural two-step console flow still works
— the form batch always sends both together and never needed that memory.
wcIsSecretReadCommand lives in WebConfigKeys.h beside the rest of the secret
classification, pinned by three host tests: what must be masked, what must not,
and that only reads are touched. 17 keys + 24 batch tests pass; the audit checks
a masked read round-trips as masked.
Five findings from review, all confirmed against the source.
Failure classification (P2). Testing replies for an "Err" prefix passed five
other shapes off as success: "Unknown command", "unknown config: x", "??: x",
"Can't find GPS", "(ERR: clock cannot go backwards)" and "File system erase:
Err". They rendered green, and worse, left _batch_all_ok true — so a queued
reboot went ahead after commands that had failed, defeating the gate entirely.
Rather than lengthen one guess, the two questions are now asked separately,
each erring safe:
- colour asks "does this look like a failure", against every shape CommonCLI
actually emits, enumerated in WebConfigBatch.h and pinned by a host test
that uses the literal strings. Getting this wrong is cosmetic.
- the reboot gate asks something narrower and answerable: "did every setting
I asked for take". Only `set`/`password` gate it, and only on the "OK"
prefix every setter keeps. Diagnostics no longer gate a reboot at all, so a
harmless `memory` cannot strand one and no guess is made about "> value".
Reboot deferral (P2). CommonCLI dispatches on a six-byte prefix, so `reboot
now` and `rebooted` reach Board::reboot() too. Matching exactly meant those
variants skipped both the confirmation and the deferral and took the node down
mid-drain — the precise failure deferral exists to prevent. Both sides now
anchor the way the firmware dispatches, and the UI's risk matcher with them.
Three commands the portal cannot honestly serve are refused at POST with a
reason, and dropped from autocomplete, instead of running and lying:
- `start ota` builds a second AsyncWebServer on port 80 with no bind check
and answers "Started" regardless; the portal already holds that port, so it
could only leak the allocation and inhibit sleep.
- `clock sync` takes its time from the caller's timestamp, which a web
request has none of, so CommonCLI always rejected it. `time <epoch>` works
and remains offered.
- bare `log` and `get acl` write their real output to Serial and hand back a
stub the terminal showed as success; `log` also streams a whole file from
the loop task, stalling the mesh and radio while it does.
The mock now emits the same failure shapes it used to fake as successes, so
these are reproducible off-hardware. 24 batch + 14 keys tests pass; audit
reports 119/119 answered, 0 missing, 4/4 refused with a reason.
The terminal has been driving the mock since it was built. This is the firmware
side, so it works on hardware.
Same 202 + reqid + poll contract as a config save, for the same reason:
CommonCLI touches prefs, the radio and the filesystem, none of which may be
reached from the async_tcp task. Commands go into the deferred slot and tick()
drains them on the loop task. Unlike a save this is not allowlisted — reaching
what the serial console reaches is the point, and execCommand() already passes
sender_timestamp 0, so the terminal gets exactly the serial console's
privilege. Authentication is the boundary, as it is there.
The CLI shares the config batch's slot rather than owning a second MAX_BATCH
array: both drain on the loop task, both are single-slot, and a duplicate would
cost ~8 KB of permanently resident RAM. Sharing also makes a save and a CLI run
mutually exclusive, which they must be. Each reader checks the kind, so neither
can serve the other's results.
Three things the mock could not have taught us:
- Board::reboot() does not return, so a drained `reboot` would take the node
down before the client read a single result. It is answered rather than
executed, and the batch arms the existing deferred-reboot path once the
results have been read — withheld if any command failed, exactly as a save
withholds one. clkreboot/poweroff/ota update do real work on the way down
and cannot be faked, so they still drop the connection; the UI warns first.
- `password <new>` echoes the new password in its reply. The config path
already scrubbed that by key; a CLI entry has no key, so it is matched on
the command. CLI commands are also kept out of the serial log entirely —
the browser session and the serial console are different audiences.
- MAX_BATCH is 24, not the 64 the page assumed. It is reported as
status.max_cmds instead of hardcoded, so the cap cannot drift.
Results stream and page (kCliResultPage = 8), and "done" means the client has
been handed every result, not merely that execution finished — otherwise a
client that stops polling at "done" loses the last page. Commands are never
echoed back: they may carry a secret, and the client matches by index.
New decisions live in WebConfigBatch.h with the rest, covered by three host
tests. Builds clean for heltec_v4_repeater_observer_mqtt; 22 batch + 14 keys
tests pass; the CLI audit reports 119/119 against the updated mock.
Improve companion BLE delivery and idempotent remote CLI retries, make FPF7 persistence atomic with FPF6 migration, verify staged OTA data on resume, and clarify filter policy wildcard and BlackHole semantics.
A neighbour heard before the clock is set carries the firmware's unset-clock
default (1715770351, 15 May 2024). Subtracting that from an NTP-synced clock
published ages of ~806 days for neighbours that had just answered a live scope
query, and a backwards clock step reported 0, i.e. "heard just now".
- finishNeighborDiscover() reports the age as unknown ("heard_secs_ago": null)
when the stored stamp and the current clock come from different epochs, or
when the clock has stepped backwards
- handleNeighborDiscoverResponse() re-stamps heard_timestamp on a zero-hop scope
reply, in both the snapshot and the live table, so entries heal once per
discovery cycle instead of waiting for the neighbour's next advert
- publish ordering places usable ages ahead of unknown ones so a poisoned stamp
cannot displace fresh entries when the JSON buffer truncates
- document the null case, and the always-present total_neighbors /
queried_neighbors / truncated fields the payload sample omitted
- add UPSTREAM_BUGS.md, tracking the monotonic-uptime fix to propose upstream
plus the unclamped subtraction in the companion and CLI readouts
Containment only: upstream still stamps neighbours from the wall clock at
packet-reception time, which on a cold boot always precedes NTP.
Absorbs 106 upstream commits. Seven files conflicted; the substantive one
was upstream's new JSON ConfigSerializer (PR #2982), which replaces the
binary /com_prefs layout with /prefs.json and makes NodePrefs a
ConfigSerializer subclass.
Prefs migration
- Adopt upstream's ConfigSerializer. writeCommonPrefsImage() and its
documented offsets (0-294) are deleted, along with the now-unreachable
saveCommonPrefsImageAtomically()/CommonPrefsFileStore atomic rename path.
- Load order is /prefs.json, then /com_prefs, then /node_prefs. Upstream
dropped the /node_prefs fallback; it is restored here so devices that
never advanced past that filename keep their config.
- Legacy files are never removed, so migration cannot destroy its own
source and a deferred or failed save simply retries next boot.
- /com_prefs is treated as a format migration only, not an "upgrade", so
it does not trip the bridge.source tx->rx flip on existing nodes.
- The MQTTPrefsAtomicStore legacy gate is retained: the observer tail
recovered from an old-format file still commits to /mqtt_prefs before
/prefs.json is written.
- MQTTPrefs and /mqtt_prefs are untouched; savePrefs keeps its save_mqtt
parameter and now returns upstream's bool.
Fixes to upstream code
- RadioPrefs::structure() bound both "rxgain" and "fem_rxgain" to
rx_boosted_gain, so radio_fem_rxgain was never persisted. Bound to the
correct field.
- discovery_mod_timestamp was dropped from structure(); it gates
'since'-filtered DISCOVER replies and is set on every config change, so
losing it would silently stop discovery responses after a reboot. Added
as "disc_mod".
Merge artifacts repaired
- Restored bblanchon/ArduinoJson to the native test env; a clean but wrong
auto-merge at the lib_deps block boundary dropped it and broke all 19
host test suites.
- Migrated the fork's WebConfig UITask screens off the removed
DisplayDriver::Color enum to upstream's UIColor element types.
- Removed duplicate getCADEnabled() definitions in companion MyMesh.cpp
and simple_sensor SensorMesh.cpp that both sides had added.
- Dropped memset(&_prefs, 0, ...) in the four example meshes; NodePrefs now
has a vtable. guard gains an initializer that memset used to provide.
Other resolutions
- simple_room_server keeps both the fork's discover.* commands and
upstream's new room.post.
- docs/payloads.md taken from upstream, undoing content earlier merges had
reverted (Control data section, split login tables).
Verified: 273/273 host tests pass across native and native_kiss_modem;
Heltec v3 repeater, repeater_observer_mqtt, room_server_observer_mqtt,
sensor, and companion_radio_ble all build clean.
MeshRank slots previously took packets only. The broker tolerates status and
neighbors (and its maintainer intends to look at using the neighbors data), so
those now publish under meshrank/uplink/{token}/{device}/{type}, using the same
type suffixes as the MeshCore layout. Raw stays excluded: it is the
highest-volume topic and the broker does not consume it, so `set mqtt.raw on`
has no effect on a MeshRank slot.
All MeshRank gating funnels through the topic router, so relaxing that single
guard was sufficient - publishStatusToSlot, publishStatus, publishRaw,
publishNeighbors, and eligiblePacketSlots already skip slots that cannot form a
topic. A per-slot token is still required. Because eligiblePacketSlots resolves
topic support before serialising, raw JSON is never built for a MeshRank slot
rather than built and discarded.
observer-firmware sends raw to MeshRank; this supersedes that decision, so raw
must stay excluded when the branches merge. MeshRankTakesEveryTypeExceptRaw
fails if a merge re-enables it.
Enhance the neighbor discovery JSON structure by introducing a
default_scope field, which indicates the region name this node
floods to by default. This change improves clarity in the
neighbor discovery process and aligns with the unscoped flood
behavior when no default region is set. Updates include
modifications to the MyMesh class and related message building
functions to accommodate the new field.
mikecarper
Scott Powell
agessaman
ViezeVingertjes