Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware

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Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
2022-11-03 00:03:45
Model: OC200  
Hardware Version:
Firmware Version:

A few weeks ago my faithful Omada controller implemented on a dedicated Raspberry Pi 4 just stopped.  The Pi was running Debian 11 with all the current updates and remained online, but the Omada SDN software was not running and several restarts failed to yeild a solution.  The network of routers, switches, and access points continued to work fine.  Even a tunnel to my motorhome was working as expected.  I ordered and received an OC200 to replace the Pi.  I tried restoring the last configuration from backup, and it seemed to work for a few minutes (the cloud software even saw the OC200), but then everything in my home network stopped.  I was leaving on a 3 week trip and haven't been back to trouble shoot this problem (and won't be for a couple of days).

 

Does anyone have a step-by-step procedure for restoring a set-up from a Pi based controller to an OC200 based controller?  I presume at this point that everything will have to go back to factory resets.

 

Alternatively is there a procedure for having a hot-spare fail-over controller?

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#1
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Re:Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
2022-11-03 06:00:44 - last edited 2022-11-03 06:01:16

  @RanchoHam 

Have you apply the backup config file on OC200?

The Controller Migration contains two main steps. One is to migrate/readopt the devices to the new controller; another one is to apply the configuration file on OC200 new controller. 

 

If you only re-adopt the devices to the OC200, but not apply the backup config file, then all existing settings will be covered by new controller default setting.

 

Try generate the config file from old controller and apply it again on OC200.

 

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Re:Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
2022-11-03 20:45:15 - last edited 2022-11-03 20:46:33

  @RanchoHam oc200 suffers on very limited performance and known bugs due to it like when you enabke backup, oc200 hangs and gets disconnected messing up quite everything. RPi4 compared to oc200 is like if you compare a sports car with a bicycle.

 

Whatever happened to your rpi4, it should take less time to repair it than suffering on underperformance of oc200.

 

You say you run it on debian, here is some tips for you:

1. If you have only config backup, uninstall omadac, reinstall clean without import, then restore config only.

2. If you do not have a backup, then do the same with a difference to reconfigure 

 

When I upgraded to 5.6.3, same happened, omada failed to start, it was java error, nothing else helped, only reinstalling clean and importing config.

 

How can you find it out?:

In folder /opt/to-link/EAPcontroller you can find file startup.log, there you will see which error it is, if you are technically handicaped, then send the log to tplink support. If you run v5.6.3, then you can use new feature exporting your config for support which is stripped of credentials and other sensitive data.

 

You could post here too, any developer should be able to identify it as well as suggest resolution, I've created a long post with logs, description and solution to the problem I described with 5.6.3, then some Home user admin decided to overstep its competence and banned me, by that I will not waste more time on writing how to resolve java issues, but one secret I will share to spare you time, it has nothing to do with java or its version, its a pure issue/bug with omada.

 

Anyway, if you can, return your oc200 and get your money back, rpi4 is excellent device for the task and I would always recommend over ocXXX, even oc300 is beaten by rpi4 beside the fact that rpi4 can be used for additional task, like wireguard or openvpn server which either does not work with omada (openvpn) or is at all not available (wireguard).

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Re:Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
2022-11-05 04:20:50

  @btx Thanks for the detailed post.  Unfortunately the return window on the OC200 closed a week ago.  Oh well.  I actually have a better use for the Pi4 anyway.

 

Without the incredible time pressure of leaving on vacation, I was able to restore my Pi SDN configuration to the OC200.  I think the key was to start with a factory reset and then have have plenty of patience while waiting for the controller to be recognized by the cloud control app (Android version).  Once I got a solid green cloud light, I was able to see the OC200 on my direct wired machine where I could restore the backup.  And again wait...wait...wait.  Eventually all of the switches, router, and access points were adopted using their previously declared admin user name and password.  After that the network pretty much fired right back up.  Next up is getting the IPsec tunnel working to my motorhome again.  I'm hoping that updating the dynamic IP addresses will get that working.  From previous experience VPN requires a LOT of WAITING.  lol

 

Cheers,

Rich

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Re:Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
2022-11-05 11:27:24

  @RanchoHam you are welcome. It sounds it took pretty long time to restore it with oc200. Last time I fully reinstalled took just few minutes. I was using radxa's rock pi4 with poe-hut, which is by hardware very similar to rpi4. After full uninstall, clean install (took about 2min) then restored backed up config (took about 1 min), that was it, all devices readapted.

 

I am curious, how long did it take in time to restore oc200 and readapt all devices?

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Re:Moving from raspberry pi to OC-200 hardware
2023-01-29 06:00:09 - last edited 2023-01-29 06:01:32

There is something about my physically leaving the area that entices Murphy to do his worst. I left for an RV Show at Quartzsite, AZ on January 19 with the network working fine. I specifically tested using remote OpenVPN access as well as linking my portable network with my home network using PTP tunneling, which works like a charm in my driveway. One day after I left (Jan 20), the OC200 changed its IP address (from 192.168.x.2 to 192.168.x.8). I could still see the home network with cloud access, but the OpenVPN access would not work, nor would the PTP tunnel. When I got home on Jan 27, I found that the OC200 was ignoring the DHCP reservation. I found and set the static address for the OC200 controller and rebooted the controller. Voila`, ITS ALIVE. My PTP tunnel even came up quickly. (It responds much quicker now that I am using NordVPN to create a stable IP address in-spite of T-Mobile's constantly changing IP addresses.)

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