Doodle Labs Technical Library

Link Status Log Walkthrough Guide (Video)

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The Link Status Log utility is designed to log the radio's link status over time. Aside from downloading the logs, you can also get the latest status from any particular node.

The Link Log utility was introduced in the October 2022 firmware release. Each device independently maintains a log of the link status information. The Link Log utility can be configured at Services -> Link Status Log. Fig. 1 shows the configuration page.

Fig. 1 Link Status Log

To enable Link Status Log, click the Enable Link Status Log check box then click Save & Apply. The logs can be downloaded directly from the GUI. Alternatively, the logs are accessible in the folder /tmp/longtermlog.

Viewing the logs

The contents of the Link Log utility are shown here,

root@smartradio:/tmp/longtermlog# ls
22-05-05_13-26-21.log 22-05-05_13-51-09.log 22-05-05_14-14-34.log ipv6list status.json

The log files are limited to 500 lines, and the file name is the date when the log started. Aside from long term logs, the Link Log utility keeps the latest status line in the file /tmp/longtermlog/status.json. The output of each line is,

'{ 

  "sysinfo": { 

    "cpu_load": [ 

      5088, 

      11072, 

      16800 

    ], 

    "freemem": 14684160, 

    "localtime": 1651760076 

  }, 

  "oper_chan": 12, 

  "oper_freq": 915, 

  "chan_width": "26", 

  "noise": "-98.808556", 

  "activity": 1, 

  "lna_status": "1", 

  "sta_stats": [ 

    { 

      "mac": "00:30:1a:50:3b:a0", 

      "inactive": 30, 

      "rssi": -49, 

      "rssi_ant": [ 

        -51, 

        -54 

      ], 

      "pl_ratio": 0.0804505, 

      "tx_bytes": 1242, 

      "tx_retries": 1, 

      "tx_failed": 0, 

      "mcs": 13 

    }, 

  ], 

  "mesh_stats": [ 

    { 

      "orig_address": "00:30:1a:50:3b:a0", 

      "tq": 255, 

      "hop_status": "direct", 

      "last_seen_msecs": 400 

    }, 

  ] 

}' 

Link Status Log Fields Explained

The output is in JSON format with the following sections. 

Field 

Subfield 

Information 

sysinfo 

 

General system information 

 

cpu_load 

CPU load normalized to 65535, reported over 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes 

 

freemem 

Free memory in Bytes 

 

localtime 

Local time in seconds since the epoch 

oper_channel 

 

Operating Channel 

oper_freq 

 

Operating Frequency 

chan_width 

 

Channel Bandwidth in MHz 

noise 

 

Noise level in dBm 

activity 

 

A percentage measure of air-time congestion. A 100% reading implies that the air time is completely saturated with transmissions. 

sta_stats 

 

Information for each station 

 

mac 

The MAC address of the station 

 

inactive 

The time since a packet was received from that station in milliseconds 

 

rssi 

The received signal strength indication in dBm 

 

pl_ratio 

Packet loss ratio. A measure of the packet loss percentage at the PHY layer. Lost packets are retransmitted, so this does not indicate packet loss at the application layer. 

 

tx_packets 

Number of packets transmitted in this time interval 

 

tx_retries 

Number of packets retried in this time interval 

 

tx_failed 

Number of packets which failed in this time interval 

 

mcs 

The MCS rate being used to transmit to this station 

mesh_stats 

 

General mesh statistics 

 

orig_address 

The address of the mesh node . The station that this set of statistics cover. Each station in the mesh is called an orginator.

 

tq 

The transmit quality to reach this node out of 255. 

 

hop_status 

Whether the node can be reached directly or not 

 

last_seen_msecs 

The time since a packet originating at the mesh layer was seen coming from this node, in milliseconds 

  • First Time Link Status Log Setup and Analysis Video

The Link Status Log Quick Walkthrough Guide Video, shows the initial configuration of the Link Status Log utility, and takes you step-by-step through the detailed analysis of a Link Status Log. This shows the common self-debugging that can be done through careful analysis of your Mesh Rider Radio's logs.

 

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