Read only (no config changes) usage possible?

[jpf91]

Hi @rubenbe,

thanks for this great project! I somehow managed to set up OpenWISP, but it’s just too complex and resource hungry. So I was very happy to see this alternative 🙂

One thing that was really annoying for me with OpenWISP: My hostnames contain underscores for legacy reasons. (Yes, this is technically not legal, but it does work). However, OpenWISP does not accept such hostnames. OTOH it always overwrites device hostnames on device reboot, so manual configuration is not possible either.

My configuration is also kind of non standard in general. WireGuard on the router, FreiFunk client WiFi on a certain VLAN and Batman mesh on some devices (not all). Also usually WAN added to LAN bridge, but not always. (On on some devices, extra config workarounds for the WAN interface conduit).

So I would like to keep my manual configuration and only use OpenSOHO for monitoring. I think I can „disable“ a host, but does that really prevent all configuration changes? And can I enable this globally, so that it also applies to new hosts on the first join?

[rubenbe]

Hi @jpf91!

You're welcome! Indeed, it's a massive thing to set up and run. I tried to slim it down, but failed, so I started OpenSOHO as it is ;)

• OpenSOHO will write your hostname, but it does not care about the validity. By default it simply configures the same hostname back on the router (including underscores)
• OpenSOHO (or more specifically actually the openwisp daemons on the routers) will try to merge the existing configs. So your wireguard config etc will not be modified.
• To be very safe indeed, keep the host disabled, that's indeed fully safe, since OpenSOHO will simply refuse the to give the host its config (error 404). The only detail is that this adds an innocent error message in the logs, so you might want to increase the refresh rate (see openwisp: Failed to connect to controller while downloading new config #6). I've given it a quick test with a docker container, and a new host shows up with a disabled config, so you should be ok.
• FYI: Things like Also usually WAN added to LAN bridge are suported in OpenSOHO.

[jpf91]

Great, that works fine and new hosts indeed show up as disabled, thanks! I'll have to play around with OpenSOHO a bit to see what it can do :-)