Meshtastic
Here are my notes on Meshtastic to-date. It is mostly about the CLI on Ubuntu 24.10.
Please note that this is still a work-in-progress and I have much to learn. My
observation is that it is very much a system still under development. The CLI lacks
consistency and the ACM (Abstract Control Model ) serial UART (universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter)
port is problematic on ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) based MCU's ( microcontroller units).
The link to this page is
https://www.lyonscomputer.com.au/Meshtastic/Meshtasic.html
I have predominatly explored the Meshtastic Command Line Interface setup method on Ubuntu 24.10,
with some references to the Web Client and the Andriod Application.
I am using the Heltec HTIT-Tracker V1.1 loaded with the esp32s3-2.5.18.89ebafc
version of the firmware.
An open source, off-grid, decentralized,
mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices
It’s a mesh network – a set of interconnected radio devices – for communication of short
text messages and small data packets. The data is usually used to share device locations
and related information. This makes it perfect for chatting and sharing where you are, or
for tracking objects and vehicles. It also has other, more specialised uses.
Platform: Linux-6.8.0-51-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.39 Release: 6.8.0-51-generic Machine: x86_64 Encoding (stdin): utf-8 Encoding (stdout): utf-8 meshtastic: v2.5.11 Executable: /home/glenn/.local/bin/meshtastic Python: 3.12.3 CPython GCC 13.3.0
Meshtastic is divided into two groups of parameters; Configs and Preferences. The Preference are grouped with a prefix, eg "lora.", "network.", or "mqtt.". They use the command formats --get <value> and --set <value> The config are more random meshrastic verbs as can be seen below. They can be referenced using --info | grep <value> and --export-config and the output is json format. I am not sure how to obtain the complete set of either. I do think the Version of the meshtastic cli has to closly match the firmware version to be reliable, I have the meshtastic cli version 2.5.11 and firmware version 2.5.18. I am hoping that is close enough.
This table shows the numberic value for each of the Region Codes. The meshtastic CLI uses numberic values as well as alph-numeric codes to address the regions:
<-- bartab.sh:lora-region-codes.tab:START:Start of table generated -->| No. | Region Code | Description | Frequency Range (MHz) | Duty Cycle (%) | Power Limit (dBm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | UNSET | Unset | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 1 | US | United States | 902.0 - 928.0 | 100 | 30 |
| 2 | EU_433 | European Union 433MHz | 433.0 - 434.0 | 10 | 12 |
| 3 | EU_868 | European Union 868MHz | 869.4 - 869.65 | 10 | 27 |
| 4 | CN | China | 470.0 - 510.0 | 100 | 19 |
| 5 | JP | Japan | 920.8 - 927.8 | 100 | 16 |
| 6 | ANZ | Australia & New Zealand | 915.0 - 928.0 | 100 | 30 |
| 7 | KR | Korea | 920.0 - 923.0 | 100 | |
| 8 | TW | Taiwan | 920.0 - 925.0 | 100 | 27 |
| 9 | RU | Russia | 868.7 - 869.2 | 100 | 20 |
| 10 | IN | India | 865.0 - 867.0 | 100 | 30 |
| 11 | NZ_865 | New Zealand 865MHz | 864.0 - 868.0 | 100 | 36 |
| 12 | TH | Thailand | 920.0 - 925.0 | 100 | 16 |
| 13 | LORA_24 | 2.4 GHz band worldwide | 2400.0 - 2483.5 | 100 | 10 |
| 14 | UA_433 | Ukraine 433MHz | 433.0 - 434.7 | 10 | 10 |
| 15 | UA_868 | Ukraine 868MHz | 868.0 - 868.6 | 1 | 14 |
| 16 | MY_433 | Malaysia 433MHz | 433.0 - 435.0 | 100 | 20 |
| 17 | MY_919 | Malaysia 919MHz | 919.0 - 924.0 | 100 | 27 |
| 18 | SG_923 | Singapore 923MHz | 917.0 - 925.0 | 100 | 20 |
A wifi pasword beginning "0" and is all numeric, when set with CLI fails with the message "4WAY_HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT", which in this case means wrong password as the leading zero is dropped.
"--get >preference<" commands, as opposed to --get->preference< (note the space), does not work for config-type attributes. It only works for preference-type attributes.
After many hours of work I decided to set the lora.region. After much experimenting, (I should have downloaded
the source code and extracted the headers instead of experimenting .) I found the CLI set command requires a
decimal number eg ANZ is "6" and MY_433 is "16". The get command returns the same number if set correctly,
However, the "meshtastic get --info | grep region" returns the enumerated string, eg "MY_433".Anyway, I set this
preference to "13" or LORA_24 and now the reboot will not complete and the white LED stays brightly lit and the
flag page keeps reappearing. Now I will have to reload the firmware and reset all the configs and preferences.
These heltec units do seem a little FLAKY! The set may not be the cause of the fault. MOre testing is required.
This is CONFIRMED. Setting the lora.region to LORA_24 prevent the Heltec Tracker 433 from completing the boot.
I know it is the wrong freq but it should handle it better than that.
My fw vers is "firmware-esp32s3-2.5.18.89ebafc" if you want to try this at home.
The "meshtastic --info" has these lines as the last of the output. What are the implications?
Channels:
Index 0: PRIMARY psk=default { "psk": "AQ==", "moduleSettings": { "positionPrecision": 13,
"isClientMuted": false }, "channelNum": 0, "name": "", "id": 0, "uplinkEnabled": false,
"downlinkEnabled": false }
Primary channel URL: https://meshtastic.org/e/#CgcSAQE6AggNEgwIATgQQANIAVAUaAE