How to use Auto Provisioning

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Auto provisioning or auto-configuration is an easy, flexible and time-saving way to upgrade firmware and configurations for E1 gateways in mass deployment. With auto provisioning, all user information can be entered via the central ACS (Auto Configuration Server). ACS can be DHCP server or TFTP, HTTP and FTP server. It will not take effects immediately but in the next time system is power on. It could be postponed the execution of restart system also.

Note that system will not be upgrade the firmware and update configurations if the connection between ACS and gateway is disconnect.

1 Preparation

The following should be prepared before anto provisioning being applied.

Enable the auto provisioning in gateway
The ACS has been prepared
The network between gateway and ACS is connected

2 Configuring gateway

Usually, the feature is disabled before being on sale. To activate the auto provisioning function, please follow the procedures as below.

Step 1 On the ADVANCED-> Auto Provision interface

Step 2 Enable the ‘Enabled’ option and select ACS. DHCP option 66 can be enabled if ACS has been work as DHCP server, otherwise please select protocol of provisioning and fill the value of ‘Auto Config Server URL’. Username and password may need to be filled in FTP/HTTP for the purpose of system safety. Do not forget to select Firmware upgrade, upgrade mode and fill the value of timeout, and click ‘Save’.

Step 3 Set interval of checking in LOGS->System notice then enable it, and click ‘Save’.

Table 1 Definition of Auto Provision

Options	Definition
Enabled	Whether to enable or disable Auto Provision
DHCP Option 66	Get ACS server address from Option 66 via DHCP
Protocol	Set protocol of connection
Auto Config Server URL	The config server domain or IP address
User Name	The account of downloading from ACS
Password	The password of downloading from ACS
Timeout	The max limit time for downloading firmware
Firmware Upgrade	Enable/disable the mode of downloading firmware
Upgrade Mode	Select upgrade time. Power: start upgrade configuration when Power on. Power + Period: Set the frequency of checking the latest configuration when gateway running

Table 2 Definition of system notice

Options	Definition
Enable	Whether to enable or disable system notice
Check Interval	When Upgrade Mode is set, this parameter specifies the interval of Checking.

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Figure 1 Auto Provision interface

3 Configuring ACS

The Auto Configuration Server can be the one of TFTP, FTP and HTTP server. The ACS is used to store the firmware release and configurations files of the devices under management.

List the primary files in ACS download directory as table 7-4-3:

Table 3 Definition of ACS files

Options	Definition
DGW100x-current.bin	The firmware image
common.conf	The wildcard configuration file for the whole gateway
defconfig.tar.gz	The default(factory) configuration file
EPC-{mac}.conf	The private configuration file for the specified gateway. Naming rules: “EPC-“ + “mac” +”.conf”. The naming prefix of “EPC-” stands for the private configuration file, “mac” is the physical address of network interface card but removed semicolon and “.conf” is the suffix. For example, the EPC-a0980501dbca.conf, ‘a0980501dbca’ is the MAC address (A0:98:05:01:DB:CA).

The format of common.conf , EPC-{mac}.conf and defconfig.tar.gz:

(1). Common.conf

[firmware]

FW_NAME=DGW100x-current.bin //Firmware image name

FW_MD5=b3603f3c3b5e7eb6326498640f151c79 //The md5 of firmware image

FW_VERSION=1.1.2 //Firmware version

[configs]

CONFIG_NAME=defconfig.tar.gz // default configuration file(compressed)

CONFIG_MD5KEY=2cd2dfbe52482405350816e3698cb530 // the md5 of default configuration file

(2).EPC-{mac}.conf

[dns]

DNS_SERVER1=8.8.8.8

DNS_SERVER2=8.8.4.4

DNS_SERVER3=

DNS_SERVER4=

[ntp]

NTP_SERVER1= 0.cn.pool.ntp.org

NTP_SERVER2= time.nist.gov

NTP_SERVER3= time.windows.com

[eth0]

ENABLE=yes

TYPE=static

DHCP=no

IPADDRESS=172.16.100.223

NETMASK=255.255.0.0

GATEWAY=172.16.0.1

[eth1]

ENABLE=yes

TYPE=static

DHCP=no

IPADDRESS=192.168.100.223

NETMASK=255.255.0.0

GATEWAY=192.168.0.1

[web_login]

username=admin

password=admin

(3). Defconfig.tar.gz

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Figure 2 the overview of defconfig.tar.gz\

4 Provisioning example

After auto provisioning is enabled, the gateway will visit the Auto Configuration Server and download the updated files periodically based on the timer Check Interval (LOGS->System notice). By default, the timer is set as every hour. System will receive a message from ACS, like figure 7-4-3, and the message will be display in the system notice (LOGS->System Notice).

Auto provisioning will not take effects immediately but in the next time system is power on. It could be postponed the execution of restart system also.

Now, an example of using Auto Provisioning will be given in the following.