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FIBER Quick Start Guide

Thank you for choosing FIBER.

Follow these steps to bring it up and get your first LoRaWAN device joined.

For more detailed information, see Installation for the full walkthrough with screenshots, and Hardware Description for the platform specs.

Step 1: Flash Raspberry Pi OS​

tip

Have a FIBER Lite (Raspberry Pi 5)? The 4 steps below are for the CM4-based FIBER and don't apply to you — no BOOT jumper, no rpiboot, no PoE adapter on your board. Skip straight to the FIBER Lite Variant chapter at the end of this guide instead.

  1. Open the top cover (four screws under the rubber feet), put the jumper to the BOOT position, connect the PoE adapter and a USB-B cable HOST↔TARGET — see Connect Target to Host for the full walkthrough.
  2. Install and run rpiboot (raspberrypi/usbboot) to switch the TARGET into bootloader mode — it then appears as a USB mass-storage device on your HOST.
  3. Flash it with Raspberry Pi Imager (Device: Raspberry Pi 4, Storage: RPi-MSD-0001 Media), setting a hostname, username/password, and enabling SSH in the Customisation step.
  4. Press RESET on the TARGET, wait for it to boot, and find its IP address from your DHCP server's leases.

Step 2: Install the Software Stack​

ssh fiber@<TARGET IP ADDRESS>

Then, in order (see Installation for the full commands and configs):

  1. Update System
  2. Configure Hardware — I2C bus + RTC
  3. Install ChirpStack
  4. Install ChirpStack Concentratord — USB-connected RAK5146
  5. Install ChirpStack MQTT Forwarder
  6. Install Node-RED

Step 3: Register a Gateway and a Device​

Nothing joins the network until a gateway and a device are registered in ChirpStack. See Register a Gateway and a Device for the full UI walkthrough: add the gateway using the ID from the Concentratord logs, create a device profile and application, then add your STICKER or CHESTER's DevEUI and OTAA keys.

Step 4: Power On Your Test Device​

Power on the physical LoRaWAN device. Watch ChirpStack's LoRaWAN frames tab (live view) — a join-request followed by a join-accept should appear within seconds if the gateway is in range and everything above is configured correctly.

If nothing appears at all, check the gateway's Last seen at timestamp first — no traffic reaching the gateway means the problem is on the radio/concentrator side, not the device registration.

Step 5: Access Your Services​

ServiceURL
ChirpStackhttp://[TARGET IP ADDRESS]:8080/
Node-REDhttp://[TARGET IP ADDRESS]:1880/
danger

Change ChirpStack's default admin/admin login before exposing the device on any shared network — nothing in the install steps rotates it automatically.

✅ That's it! Your FIBER is flashed, running ChirpStack, and receiving real LoRaWAN uplinks.

FIBER Lite Variant​

FIBER Lite (Raspberry Pi 5) runs the same core stack, but with a different flashing procedure and a larger, pre-integrated software stack on top. Only what's different from the steps above:

  • Flashing: no BOOT jumper, no rpiboot, no bootloader activation at all — flash a plain microSD card directly with Raspberry Pi Imager and insert it. See Flash Raspberry Pi OS (FIBER Lite tab) for IP-discovery methods, a static-IP recipe, and the SSH-in step.
  • Configure Hardware: skip the RTC overlay line entirely — the Pi 5 has a built-in RTC.
  • Concentratord: the RAK5146 connects via SPI through a RAK2287 HAT, not USB — a different config and install procedure (see the FIBER Lite tab in Install ChirpStack Concentratord), currently not yet verified on real hardware.
  • Additional services: install Docker, then continue with InfluxDB, Grafana, and the branded Dashboard under FIBER Lite in the sidebar — its complete pipeline beyond what FIBER ships by default. See Ports & Default Credentials for the full list of services and ports once everything is running.
  • Full FIBER Lite specifics (BOM, hardware differences): see FIBER Lite Introduction in the sidebar.

If anything doesn't behave as expected, see Troubleshooting under FIBER Lite in the sidebar.