Configuring the Room Server

Name, location, admin and guest passwords, read-only access and advert intervals

The board is flashed and on the right frequency. Now we give it an identity and lock it down, because the passwords it shipped with are printed in the public documentation.

Step 1 - name it

set name Liverpool-Makers-Room

Why this matters: the name is what your group looks for in their contacts list. Make it obvious what the room is for. Kev-Room-01 tells nobody anything; Village-Noticeboard tells them everything.

Names can run to roughly 24 to 32 bytes depending on the field, so keep it reasonably short - and remember it goes out over the air on every advert.

Step 2 - change the admin password

Do this before anything else touches the air.

password <your-new-admin-password>

The factory default is password. It is documented publicly, which means every MeshCore user in the world already knows it. Until you change it, anyone in radio range can log in as admin and reconfigure your node.

Write the new one down somewhere you will still have it in a year.

Step 3 - set the guest password

set guest.password <your-group-password>

The factory default is hello, and it is equally public.

How to think about this password: it is the one you actually hand out. It is what a member of your group types once to join the room. Pick something memorable and speakable - people will be reading it to each other. hedgehog-fields is a better group password than Xk9$2p.

Verify it took:

get guest.password

Step 4 - decide about read-only access

set allow.read.only on

With this on, anyone can read the room’s posts without a password. They still need the guest password to post.

When to turn it on: a public noticeboard - emergency coordination, event info, a village mesh where you want passers-by to be able to read.

When to leave it off: anything that is meant to be a private group conversation.

A note on what “private” means here: posts to a room are carried across the mesh as ordinary MeshCore traffic. Read-only off keeps strangers out of the room, which is real access control. Do not treat it as a guarantee that nobody anywhere could ever observe traffic. For genuinely sensitive things, direct messages between two nodes are the right tool.

Step 5 - set the location

set lat 53.4084
set lon -2.9916

Same guidance as the repeater in part one: use your own coordinates, and round to three decimal places (roughly 100 metres) if you would rather not publish your exact address.

Step 6 - set the owner info

set owner.info Kev - kevsrobots.com

Why this matters: if your room server ever misbehaves, floods, or needs turning off, this is how somebody finds you. It is a small courtesy that makes you a good neighbour on a shared mesh.

Pipe characters in this field convert to newlines, so you can fit a couple of lines in if you want.

Step 7 - advert intervals

set advert.interval 60
set flood.advert.interval 12

advert.interval is in minutes and accepts 60 to 240. flood.advert.interval is in hours and accepts 3 to 168.

The same etiquette applies as on a repeater: flood adverts are rebroadcast by every repeater in the region, so a room server that floods every three hours is being greedy with everyone’s airtime. Twelve hours is plenty for a fixed node.

Then announce yourself:

advert

Note that plain advert sends a flood advert - it goes across the whole mesh. For a local-only announcement to nodes in direct range, use:

advert.zerohop

Step 8 - check your work

get name
get role
get radio
get guest.password
get allow.read.only
get lat
get lon
stats-core

Take a screenshot or copy the output somewhere. When something goes odd in three months, a record of the known-good configuration is worth a great deal.

The room server settings, summarised

Try it Yourself

1. Set the guest password to something, then run get guest.password to confirm. Now try logging in from the app with the old one.
2. Turn allow.read.only on and off and note how the room appears differently to a client that has never authenticated.
3. Challenge: write out the exact joining instructions you will send your group - node name, guest password, and the three taps in the app. Test them on somebody who has not seen the room before.

Common Issues

Problem: I changed the admin password and now I cannot get in.

Solution: Connect over USB serial and run password <new-password> again.

Why: The serial console is always trusted - the password only ever gates access over the air. Physical access is always the way back in.

Problem: set guest.password returns an error.

Solution: Check you are on room server firmware, not repeater firmware.

Why: A guest password only exists on roles that have guests. A repeater has no concept of one.

Problem: My group can read the room but cannot post.

Solution: They have joined as read-only guests. Give them the guest password.

Why: With allow.read.only on, joining without a password succeeds and grants read access only. It looks like a working join right up until they try to say something.

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