cnPilot R201 Initial Impressions\Changes

Products Residential Wi-Fi
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I was super ecited about the introduction of the cnPilot products, and from a service provider standpoint, they seemed like a perfect compliment to the PMP series radios, until I got them and started to work with one.  There are a few changes that should be made in order for them to be usable in a service provider environment.  Keep in ind that I only have R201P units, so that is what this is based on.  Also, these are all issues with local config since Cambium support is super slow in getting my cnMaestro account info to me.

1 - User Account - while they boast "two-level manegement", the levels are silly.  One of those levels, perhaps Basic User, should have limited access to the WAN network settings.  As it is right now, every user account can change the WAN connection type (DHCP, static, etc), and change WAN IP addesses.  A "user" account should only be able to changes things on the WAN side - LAN subnet info, WiFi SSIS's, WiFi radio settings.  Right now, with users able to access important, connection-dependent settings, these can not go out to end users.

2 - WAN PoE - why is this always on?  Not every device that it will be plugged into will accept the proprietary Canopy passive 24 VDC.  This should be optional under the admin accountt o avoid damage to other devices.  Heck the old Canopy power supplie had a warning to connect one end to a radio and the other to a computer, why are these different?

3 - User Guide - This needs a major update.  There is no explanation of things like the user account differences/limitations, no mention of the WAN PoE being "always on", minimal description of the "Connect Name" or "Service" fields.

4 - Remote Config - If you change the TCP port that is listens on, it applies to both the LAN and WAN sides - you can't set one non-standard port for WAN and a standard port number for LAN.  It's all or nothing.

For now, we may either send these units back (even with the buy 9 get 1 free promo), or they will just sit in a box and collect dust until things get better.

1 Like
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Thanks for your feedback, we are working on the required changes in user account and improving our user guide. Following are the planned changes :
 
1) We are reviewing the user accounts - what admin and other users can do.We will incorporate your valuable feedback in an upcoming release.
 
2) WAN PoE is always ON in 200P/201P this is for the specific requirement and hardware is designed like that.For non PoE deployment we have other SKU's.In future hardware designs we will keep the PoE out funtionality as configurable so that user can switch off PoE from software.
 
3) We will update user guide with admin user details after doing modification in default account settings. We will elaborate it in detail to avoid any confusion. We will update information for PoE always ON in 200/201P version and will try to elaborate more about Connect Name and Service fields. Once again thanks for your feedback regarding the user guide.
 
4) We may need more information , please explain which Remote config you are talking about - Telnet Access or Web Access.
 

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For the remote config, it's the web based stuff.  Typically it makes sense to be able to use the standard port 80 on the LAN side, since it's trusted, and use a non-standard port on the WAN side, since it's untrusted.

Thanks for the updates Chandra.

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@acherman wrote:

For the remote config, it's the web based stuff.  Typically it makes sense to be able to use the standard port 80 on the LAN side, since it's trusted, and use a non-standard port on the WAN side, since it's untrusted.

Thanks for the updates Chandra.

I agree. We like to use port 8080 on the WAN side for remote access while leaving the LAN side on 80. This is how it works on Linksys, Netgear, you name it. The shipped firmware version allowed this. 4.1-R2 does not.

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Hi,

We will review this requirement for WAN and LAN port access and do the necessary changes in 4.1-R2 as per feedback.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.