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.
The full embedded string is v1.16.0.5-observer-beta-dev-a1b2c3d. The -observer
tag is on every observer build and the commit is for machines, so neither tells
a person anything at a glance. Both the page header and the console banner now
show base + published build number + channel, paired with the build date the
way `ver` pairs them:
v1.16.0.5-dev (6 Jun 2026)
v1.16.0.5 (6 Jun 2026)
`ver` still prints the whole string, commit included, for when that is what you
need. The channel suffix follows the release filenames rather than the embedded
tag — build.sh writes FILENAME_CHANNEL_TAG "-dev" for the same builds it tags
"-observer-beta-dev" internally, so "-dev" is the name these already carry.
Carrying the build date meant /api/status had to report it; WebConfigServer now
takes FIRMWARE_BUILD_DATE alongside FIRMWARE_VERSION, from the same defines
`ver` reads.
A local build has neither build number nor channel to show, so the fact worth
knowing about it moves to the second line: "local build, OTA not configured".
build.sh deliberately leaves OTA_MANIFEST_BASE undefined there, and a bare
version number gives no hint that the node cannot update itself.
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.
Two things hardware turned up.
The whole terminal came back red. The endpoint decided a command had succeeded
by testing its reply for an "OK" prefix — the convention the config batch relies
on, and a safe one there because every allowlisted setter uses it. The CLI
reaches the whole surface, where success has no single shape: setters answer
"OK...", getters answer "> value", `erase` answers "File system erase: OK". Only
failure is uniform ("Err", "ERR:", "Error:"), so that is what the CLI now tests
for.
Colour was the visible half. The other half was worse: _batch_all_ok went false
the moment a sequence contained a `get`, so a script ending in `reboot` was told
some commands had failed and the reboot was withheld.
Replies are green now and red means the node said no, which is what red should
have meant all along. The "> " a getter prefixes its value with is dropped for
display — on the serial console it sets the value apart, here it collides with
the prompt glyph that means "you typed this". The mock emits that marker too;
had it done so from the start, this would have shown up before the flash.
Second: discover.neighbors and discover.scopes did not autocomplete, because
MyMesh::handleCommand intercepts a few commands before delegating to CommonCLI
and the table was built by reading CommonCLI alone. setperm, `get acl` and
`shutdown` were missing for the same reason.
The audit could not have caught that: it drove every command the table offered
and checked the mock answered, which only finds gaps in one direction. It now
also reads the command literals the firmware dispatches on — across CommonCLI,
CommonCLI_Observer and MyMesh — and fails on any the table does not offer. That
check found `shutdown` immediately.
122 commands, all answered, none missing. 22 batch + 14 keys tests pass.
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.
Three fork-introduced dependencies had leaked into non-ESP32 builds, breaking
every nRF52 and RP2040 target since 7e4f75c9 (2026-04-10):
- The `memory` CLI command called ESP.getFreeHeap()/heap_caps_* unguarded from
shared CommonCLI.cpp. ESP32 output is unchanged; other platforms now report
newlib arena stats, omitting min-ever-free and largest-free-block rather than
substituting numbers that mean something different.
- The vendored PsychicMqttClient (ESP-IDF esp-mqtt) was pulled in by the LDF on
nRF52; nrf52_base now lib_ignores it, matching how RP2040 variants ignore BLE.
- JWTHelper.cpp and MQTTMessageBuilder.cpp are excluded in arduino_base, but 22
variants re-glob helpers/*.cpp after inheriting it, which undoes the exclusion.
Guarding the file contents on WITH_MQTT_BRIDGE is robust against any variant's
filter, and matches helpers/esp32/WebConfigServer.cpp.
Verified: RAK4631 repeater + room server, Heltec T114, T1000-E, Wio WM1110,
Xiao nRF52 and ThinkNode M1 all build. ESP32 observer builds are byte-identical
to before (RAM and flash), and the native suite stays at 267/267.
RP2040 still fails separately: four boards declare the pre-force_ap
startOTAUpdate signature. Not addressed here.
Neighbors publication was gated on BOARD_HAS_PSRAM. Removing that gate alone
was not enough: the feature built but was inert without PSRAM, because three
allocation sites asked for MALLOC_CAP_SPIRAM (which returns null with no
PSRAM), the bridge's persistent buffer was allocated inside a BOARD_HAS_PSRAM
block, and neighborDiscoverReady() rejected every pass at runtime on
psramFound(). The entry table also did not fit: finishNeighborDiscover put
pubkey_hex[50][65] plus entries[50] on the stack, a 4752-byte frame against
the mesh loop task's 8 KB.
- Gate on MAX_NEIGHBOURS plus PSRAM or an explicit per-variant
MQTT_NEIGHBORS_WITHOUT_PSRAM opt-in.
- Move the entry table and its hex strings into one heap block sized to the
pass; the frame drops from 4752 to 304 bytes.
- Prefer PSRAM and fall back to internal DRAM in the mesh-side allocations
and the ArduinoJson pool; hoist the bridge's persistent buffer out of the
BOARD_HAS_PSRAM block (psram_malloc already falls back).
- Keep the runtime psramFound() check only where the buffers are sized for
PSRAM, so a board whose PSRAM failed to init still refuses.
- Size for internal DRAM without PSRAM: 4 KB text buffer and 20 entries per
publish, keeping the pool to a single block and the peak near 13 KB rather
than ~35 KB. Oversized tables truncate and report total_neighbors as before.
Enabled on the ESP32-S3 observer envs (Heltec V3/WSL3, RAK3112, Heltec
Tracker v1.1/v2). Left off for the classic ESP32 T-LoRa V2.1-1.6, which is
already limited to one active TLS slot.
Costs ~7.4 KB static DRAM on repeaters and ~9.6 KB on room servers. The
prefs layout is unchanged, so this is neutral for existing devices.
ArduinoJson v7 hands out document-pool blocks in fixed 4096-byte chunks, so
the pool is not bounded by the size of the text it serialises to. Budgeting
it at NEIGHBORS_JSON_BUFFER_SIZE starved it once the table grew: a 50-entry
table needs 12541 B of pool against the 10240 B cap, and a starved allocator
sets doc.overflowed(), which makes buildNeighborsMessage return 0 and drop
the entire publish rather than truncating the tail.
Repeaters with roughly 40 or more neighbours therefore published no neighbors
message at all, silently, while smaller tables published normally.
Give the pool its own NEIGHBORS_DOC_POOL_BUDGET and add an explicit
NEIGHBORS_MAX_PUBLISH_ENTRIES cap alongside the existing text-size check.
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.
CustomLR1110::startReceive() passed RADIOLIB_LR11X0_IRQ_PREAMBLE_DETECTED
(1<<4 = 16) as RadioLib's first argument, which is the RX *timeout*, not an
IRQ mask. At the LR11x0's 30.52us tick that armed the receiver for ~488us, so
it dropped out of RX before any packet could arrive and the node received
nothing at all -- while transmitting normally.
Symptoms on a SenseCAP T1000-E: tx_air_secs rising, rx_air_secs stuck at 0,
recv_errors 0, and the noise floor pinned at the -120 clamp because
getCurrentRSSI() never sampled a live receiver.
Pass RADIOLIB_LR11X0_RX_TIMEOUT_INF (continuous RX), which is what
LR11x0::startReceive() itself uses, keeping the PREAMBLE_DETECTED flag in the
reported IRQ flags as intended.
Introduced in ea5d7c8b ("LR1110: add PREAMBLE_DETECTED to reported irq flags").
Verified on two T1000-E units: with only the repeater fixed it began receiving
(last_rssi -29, SNR 17.0) while the unfixed companion stayed deaf; fixing both
brought up the link in each direction.
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.
Enhance the MQTT preferences handling by establishing a downgrade
contract that ensures compatibility between different firmware versions.
This contract allows nodes to read settings from newer builds while
safeguarding against data loss during downgrades. The implementation
includes updates to the classification logic, ensuring that longer
payloads from newer versions are handled correctly without rejecting
files, thus preserving critical WiFi credentials and broker settings.
Add support for named packet types in per-slot filters, allowing users
to specify packet types using descriptive names alongside numeric values.
This improves usability and clarity in configuring MQTT slot filters.
Updates include modifications to the parsing logic, WebConfig interface,
and related documentation to reflect the new naming conventions.
Introduce per-slot packet filters to allow users to specify which
packet types are uploaded for each MQTT slot. This feature enhances
the flexibility of the MQTT bridge by enabling users to configure
allowlists for packet types, improving the efficiency of data
transmissions. The implementation includes updates to the WebConfig
interface, internal handling of packet filters, and necessary
modifications to the MQTT preferences structure.
If Bluefruit.begin fails, BLE OTA mode won't actually start and the board might require a reboot to reattempt.
Fixes:
- Bluefruit.begin returns false in NRF52Board.startOTAUpdate if OTA mode fails to start. User is notified of the fault through existing error message in CommonCLI and can reattempt "start ota" command.
Introduce new methods to manage neighbor discovery JSON budget and
entries in MyMesh. This includes tracking the number of queried and
published neighbors, measuring JSON sizes, and handling truncation
when the buffer limit is reached. These improvements optimize the
neighbor discovery process and ensure efficient JSON message
construction for MQTT communications.
Add functionality to manage neighbor discovery requests in MyMesh.
This includes handling the status of requests, updating the state
upon transmission success or failure, and implementing a timeout
mechanism for neighbor discovery queries. The changes improve the
efficiency and reliability of neighbor discovery operations in
MQTT-enabled environments.
agessaman
Martynas Zilinskas
Josh Clarke
Huw Duddy
ripplebiz
Mike Damon
taco
entr0p1
liamcottle