¶ What is Hive?
Hive is a web-based network management tool designed explicitly for Meshmerize networks. It enables you to visualize, configure, and operate your distributed Meshmerize network from the convenience of your web browser.
Each deployment of Hive is designed to manage one Meshmerize network. So if you are running multiple Meshmerize networks (networks that are geographically apart), you will need multiple Hive deployments, one for each network.
Note: Hive simply makes managing Meshmerize networks more convenient. It does not affect the critical functionality of Meshmerize in any way. If the Meshmerize nodes lose connection to the Hive server for any reason, they continue to function just normally as you'd expect. They will just not show up in the Hive UI in that period.
¶ Architecture
There are three components to get a Hive-managed Meshmerize network.
- Meshmerize app - Runs on the respective nodes, with the appropriate licenses installed.
- Hive-daemon - Runs on the respective nodes as a service
- Hive (server) - Web app, runs in the cloud, managed and operated by the Meshmerize team. The nodes need to be able to reach the Hive server over IP. On-site Hive deployments are also possible for enterprise-scale networks.
¶ Creating a new Hive deployment
Currently, you are not able to create arbitrary Hive deployments on the fly by yourself. Contact us at support@meshmerize.net, and we'd be delighted to set one up for you.
¶ Network statistics
Node “online-ness” or uptime statistics, is one of the key metrics that need to be tracked for industrial networks. Hive displays both the current state of the network in terms of the number of nodes online, per node group and also shows historical information in the graph.
The historical data can also be downloaded in .csv format from the download button on the top right corner of the uptime graph.
Note: You can configure which node group each node belongs to, from Nodes > [select the node] > Management > Name & group.
¶ Airtime monitoring / Channel utilization
Airtime (channel) utilization metrics are some most useful KPIs for evaluating the network health of any wireless network. It directly influences key network characteristics such as latency, reliability, and further scalability. Hive provides an intuitive way to monitor and visualize channel utilization. The graph shows historical information on the average and maximum channel utilization, measured by all the nodes, collectively. When the average airtime is consistently over 75%, it is representative of a very busy network and may need some intervention such as adding further backboned nodes, or inspecting for any malicious or interfering external network, to prevent any network incidents proactively.
The airtime measured and visualized by Hive represents the total amount of utilized airtime, i.e. irrespective of whether it is Meshmerize traffic or other interfering traffic. Hence this can also be used to detect and manage any unwanted interfering wifi networks such as hotspots.
The heatmap on the right visualizes the current airtime utilization measured by each individual node. Darker colors indicate a busier channel. This can be used to localize any interfering networks or identify where an additional backbone node may need to be placed.
¶ Chart intervals
You can select one of 6 time intervals to fetch the data for the charts. Live means that the data will be updated automatically every update interval (is the default value after the page loads). Other values will render the data one and won't be updated unless "Update charts" button will be clicked.
Selecting any other mode will desaturate Current online and spatial channel utilization blocks, as to show that this data doesn't correspond to the current selected interval.
¶ Node Statuses
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Node is online. |
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Node is offline |
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Node is in provisioning. |
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Trial node (node doesn't have a valid license). |
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Shadow node (Has not been seen by the Mesh management, but was referenced by other nodes). |
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Node's meshmerize generation differs from the UI default. |
¶ Topology visualization
The nodes that are connected to Hive will show up on the topology map. You can upload any arbitrary image (e.g. Floor plan, Satellite image of the site, etc.) as the background for this topology map through the Hive settings > Floor plan page. Inside the topology page, you can drag and drop the static nodes, so that it better resembles your scenario.
The colored lines between nodes represent direct links between neighbor nodes. You can filter the node groups that should be displayed on the topology map. Typically, you might want to hide the mobile nodes and only show the static nodes on the map.
¶ Management
On the Topology page, topology offers the set of the following management functions:
- Zoom in/out - can be done by clicking on "+" and "-" icons in the top right corner, or by using the mouse wheel.
- Settings menu - prompts on clicking on the cog icon. Features filtering by the node groups, and changing the display of the topology.
- Updating positions - is done by Drag&Drop of the node icons. All new nodes, or the ones that don't have a position set will appear in the left bottom corner of the topology map.
- Custom image - can be uploaded on the settings page. An arbitrary width and height can be set for every image that will define the size of the working field.
- Detailed view - prompts on clicking on a particular node. A separate window with extended information, as well as all Links and Routes will be displayed on the right. Also every other active node will display the metric from the selected node to it.
¶ Nodes
Nodes page displays all the nodes known to the Mesh management and their respective state (refer to Node states section). It also shows such information as when the node was last seen, it's custom name, MAC-address, list of ips of interfaces, a group it belongs to and number of pending commands, as well as the link to the node detailed page.
The nodes view features a filter for the most of displayed fields. All text filters, such as Name and MAC use "contains" search. All fields except Status and IPs allow sorting. Static sorting for the Network display is as follows: Provisioning nodes (which are online) -> Online nodes -> Online shadow nodes -> Offline nodes. Additional sorting will be applied after the static one.
¶ Managing a single node
Each node connected to Hive has its own node page, from which it can be individually monitored, managed, and maintained. The Nodes page contains the list of all nodes in the deployment, along with an overview of their current status and warnings, including:
- Online/Offline: Indicating whether the node is currently connected to Hive.
- License status: Indicating whether the node has the appropriate Meshmerize license
- Shadow status: Indicates that the node is “seen” by at least one Hive-enabled node, but it does not seem to be connected to Hive by itself (likely because hive-daemon is not running on the node).
- Version mismatch: Indicating that the node is running a different version of Meshmerize than expected, and needs to be updated asap.
You can click on any of the nodes to manage it individually.
This tab displays the overall state of the node and it's recent history.
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Node page displays an in depth information about the meshmerize node, and offers management capabilities. During the normal operation every node sends only limited information about itself, necessary to provide topology overview. When you navigate to the node page, it start to send extended information about itself. It may take a bit of time to receive this information after opening the page.
The first row on the page displays node status, the time it was last seen by the Mesh management and an icon of the group, if the node belongs to one.
¶ Links
Link tab displays all the links of the node (to its direct neighbors) in the form of a table, and as well features a topology view with only the link of the node displayed. No management capabilities are available in this topology view. ETT stands for Estimated Transfer Time and is an abstract measure to determine quality of the link. In general the higher the value - the worst the quality.
¶ Routes
This tab displays all the known routes of the node. A single row of the table describes how long will it take to transfer a packet from this node to an arbitrary node, and which of it's neighbors will be used for the transfer. Metric is an abstract measure of a distance between the nodes. The higher the value - the longer it will take to transfer a packet to that node.
¶ Interfaces
Features a list of meshmerize interfaces of the node with it's respective type (Wi-Fi, Ethernet, 5G, etc.). Also includes counters for total send and received packets.
¶ Streams
Features a list of active data streams that this node is a participant of. Node can be either Sender (creating a data stream), Receiver (consuming a data stream), Recoder (being a relay node for a data transfer).
¶ Management
Management tab offers multiple features to query and manipulate the node, as well as customize it inside of the Mesh management.
The top 2 fields allow you to set a custom node name and assign a custom group (it will only affect the view of the node within the Mesh management).
¶ Commands
This block allows you to send arbitrary SH commands to the node. It is only available if the node is online, otherwise all commands will be permanently dropped. It's only possible to run one command at a time on a single node. All commands that will be sent during the execution of another command will be dropped.
- Live updates checkbox allows to receive intermediate updates on the command result during it's execution.
- Delay allows to delay execution of the command for N seconds. Default value - 0, MAX value is 255.
- Max execution time allows to set the maximum execution time in seconds for the command. After this time the command will be stopped if it hasn't been finished before. Default value is 60s. MAX value is 255s. Setting 0 as a value will make the command run indefinitely.
Under the fields you can find a table of all the commands previously sent to the node, as well as current running command. You can see the command, it's type (list also includes provisioning, firmware updates and files upload/download commands). Clicking on the command will expand it, and reveal the output of the command if it has it.
- - allows you to delete a command. Only available if the command has not been sent to the node.
- - duplicates already executed command and sends it again.
- - stops currently running command (If it's not firmware update or provisioning).
You can upload files to a node using "Upload file to node" form. You can either pick up already existing file in the Mesh management, or select a file on your file system. You can also specify a custom target directory (defaults to /tmp)
The firmware of the node can be updated on this page using "Firmware update" form. It only offers a select box with already uploaded firmwares (can be done on Settings page). Note that uploading a firmware to a node and flushing it may take some time.
You can download an arbitrary file from the node using "Download file from the node" form. You have to type the absolute path of the local file on the node into the text field and click "Download". The file will be saved inside of the Mesh management and displayed in the table below.
¶ Settings
Node settings display the contents of the node config files (etc/config/wireless, /etc/config/network and /etc/config/meshmerize). These settings are received during the node register and may differ from actual ones if any commands have been executed after.
It also displays a list of all interfaces that have an IPv4 IP address. If node is online it features a link to a LuCi interface for more in-depth node management. If the setting "luci_iface" is not set, the link to the LuCi will be displayed near every interface, but probably will be accessible only over few. You can set "luci_iface" on the Settings page.
¶ Provisioning
Provides a link to the provisioning page. Only visible if node is in provisioning state. For more information refer to Provisioning section.
¶ Firmware update
Firmware can be uploaded to hive from your desktop. Uploaded binaries can be directly installed on chosen devices using Hive
¶ Control Panel
The control panel offers network wide command execution. You can run commands simultaneously on multiple nodes, either by using the input field or by uploading prepared scripts. The results of the commands are displayed in real time: you can follow the live feed back of latency or throughput measurement tools.
¶ Mesh settings
Network settings page features a set of network wide settings. Updating the settings will apply them to all nodes currently online. Please note that all nodes that are offline during the update won't get the update, which may lead to the nodes falling off the network completely.
By default only 2.4 Wifi settings are displayed. If you have 2 networks running, or want to change the name of the existing Wifi, go to Settings and set the names for the Wifi device and interface.
¶ Updating mesh and wifi settings
Inside the Mesh settings panel, you can find relevant options concerning both the 2,4GHz and 5GHz radio frequencies. From here, you can update things like the channel, the name of the mesh network(s), and the password for all the nodes at the same time. Hive takes care of applying the settings, only after every node in the network is ready.
Before using this function, you will need to configure respective interface names under Hive Settings.
¶ Provisioning
Provisioning - is set of pages to provision fresh nodes that are not yet part of your network. New nodes should already include meshmerize installed but may not have the right settings for a particular network.
Nodes is considered a provisioning node if it connected to the Hive over the provisioning IP address. Default provisioning address is 10.3.0.50, but may be customized for your personal network. If your devices have default settings, set up the 10.3.0.50 IP address for one of the Ethernet ports of the machine where Hive is running and connect an active node to it.
On Provision page you can see the list of all nodes that are currently in provisioning. Click on "Provision" button of a respective node to start.
On the Provisioning page of a single node you will see 3 Text areas that include following settings:
- /etc/config/wireless
- /etc/config/network
- /etc/config/meshmerize
And the 4th Text area for the set of custom SH commands that should be executed after the contents of the config files will be updated.
Text areas will contain current settings of the node, and should be updated to your wish. After you finish editing files and writing additional commands click on "Save and provision" to upload new settings to the node. By clicking "Save" only the state of the setting files and commands will be saved in the Hive, but nothing will be sent to a node.
On top of the page you will find a select box with your saved templates. Selecting a template and clicking on the button "Apply" next to it, will only copy the values from the template to the current provisioning locally in the Mesh management and no updates will be sent to a node yet.
After the provisioning is finished it will be displayed on provisioning history page, as well as on the Node page in the "Management" tab.
History/Templates page displays all saved templates, as well as a history of provisioning with the respective statuses. Any previous provision can be viewed. A template can be created based on one of the existing provisions (all values will be copied to the template) and later the template can be edited or deleted.
¶ Hive Settings
¶ General settings
This tab includes the list of settings that define the operation of the Hive as well as the operation of the access point agents. Some of the settings have [R] in the beginning of the name, which means that after saving the value, all access point agents will be restarted and will be offline for some time (only agent is restart not the node). Button "Restart AP agents" will manually trigger the restart of the agents.
¶ Node groups
This tab allows you to create custom set of node groups (for example access points, robots, drones, etc.) with respective icons. Later the groups can be assigned to nodes on the Node page.
¶ Firmware
Upload and manage firmware binaries using this page. You can individually push and upgrade nodes using these files.
¶ Topology images
In this tab you can upload your own floor plans, or any custom images that will be displayed in topology overview. You can have multiple images, but only one active topology image, which can be changed with the help of the radio button in the table. Every image has fields "width" and "height", which define how large will be the topology area. They don't necessarily correspond to the dimensions of the image. The larger the dimensions the deeper you will be able to zoom in topology overview.
¶ Files
In this tab you can upload files that can be later uploaded to a node, or multiple nodes. You will find the same form on the Node page, and all the files uploaded through that form will end up here in the managed list.
eg: It is useful to upload scripts to run on nodes.
¶ Users
This page allows you to create, update and delete users. Admin users are marked with the Cog icon.
Admin users can execute management functions, such as change settings, send commands, upload files, etc.
Simple users can only view the information without any influence on the Hive.
Every user can be deactivated by unchecking "Is active" on the user update page.
¶ Firewall consideration
In order for the nodes to connect to the Hive server, make sure that the following traffic is allowed by the firewall:
- Port 8883/TCP | Outbound to *.hive.meshmerize.net
- Port 443/TCP | Outbound *.hive.meshmerize.net
- Access to any public DNS server