partial 20 min verified 723b308 (2026-09-19)
Administer the house
Day-to-day house control is a short list. Most of it is SSH to the overlay. Lightning Admin today only discovers boxes and sets the client Wi-Fi name.
Status: partial. Overlay SSH, WPS WAN window, names, gateway auto/never, and Lightning Admin's network-name apply are built. A "Manage network" owner UI with roles is in progress, not on the box.
Reach a router
Prefer the overlay. Ethernet at 192.168.1.1 is recovery.
| Where you are | How |
|---|---|
| On the mesh Wi-Fi or a LAN port | ssh root@10.254.x.y |
| On the network upstream of the mesh | Press WPS once on the box (15-minute WAN SSH from that LAN only), then SSH to its WAN address |
| Nothing else works | Ethernet to a LAN port, ssh root@192.168.1.1, then ssh-keygen -R 192.168.1.1 if the host key changed |
You need an authorized SSH key. A WPS press does not pair Wi-Fi and does
not open the whole internet. Copy files with scp -O (Dropbear has no
SFTP).
A useful ~/.ssh/config stanza:
Host 10.254.*
User root
StrictHostKeyChecking accept-new
Find 10.254.x.y on hello.mesh under Routers, or from
service mjolnir-meshd diag on a box you can already reach.
Lightning Admin (desktop)
Do: on a computer that can see the house LAN, run Lightning Admin
(admin/ in the repo: bun install then bun run tauri dev, or a
Windows build from admin/scripts/windows-build/).
Expect: a list of discovered routers and a Network name field.
Apply writes the client SSID (CLIENT_SSID) on reachable nodes. An empty
name does not apply.
If not: you are not on a network that can see the boxes. Join the mesh Wi-Fi or the upstream LAN after a WPS window. Guild membership inside Admin is not built.
Renaming the SSID this way does not change the backhaul id
(mjolnir-mesh) and does not touch identity.
Rename one router
Do:
ssh root@10.254.x.y
uci set mjolnir.meshd.name='kitchen'
uci commit mjolnir
service mjolnir-meshd restart
Expect: hello.mesh shows kitchen within a minute.
If not: service mjolnir-meshd diag should still be healthy. A restart
drops client Wi-Fi for a few seconds.
Share internet, or refuse to
Default is gateway=auto: a working WAN is offered to the whole mesh.
Do this on a box plugged into a guest, metered, or captive network:
uci set mjolnir.meshd.gateway='never'
uci commit mjolnir
service mjolnir-meshd restart
Expect: that box still serves local clients; it does not become the house's default route to the internet.
Health and recovery
| Question | Command |
|---|---|
| Is this box healthy? | service mjolnir-meshd diag |
| Last staged apply | cat /root/mjolnir-stage/result and apply.log |
A dead flash is a new identity. The node secret never leaves the box. A replacement is a new router: Add another router.
Longer operator reference: Operate your node.