IgniteNet

HeliOS Firmware 1.1.2 is released

IgniteNet -

What's new?

Where do we start?! Let's cover some of the major items:

  • Network IP range conflict detection and resolution

All of IgniteNet's HeliOS-based Wi-Fi products (Spark, SunSpot, SkyFire) ship with two built-in local networks - one "main" network, and another more secured "guest" network. By default, the subnet ranges of these networks is set to 192.168.2.1 and 192.168.3.1, respectively.

But... what if your network is already configured to use one of these subnets? When you plug in your network cable to the WAN port of your AP, there will be an IP conflict in the local AP's network and your upstream network.

As of 1.1.2, if your WAN subnet conflicts with any of the local networks (even the custom ones you create), we will automatically change the subnet of the local network.

  • Added Dynamic VLAN support

When using normal (static) VLAN'ing, you typically assign one VLAN id per SSID. When using Dynamic VLANs (in conjunction with 802.1X Enterprise authentication) you can assign individual VLAN IDs to users when they authenticate, no matter which SSID they connect to. This is a very important feature that will help you build out secured, multi-tenant networks.

This feature deserves its own article - so go here to read more about Dynamic VLANS!

  • Added RADIUS MAC auth support

This setting will tell the AP to send the MAC addresses of its wireless clients to your RADIUS server for authentication.

RADIUS MAC authentication works well when paired with Dynamic VLANS since it gives you the ability to authenticate certain clients that don't support 802.1x authentication (such as many peripherals).

  • Complete device UI redesign

We've finally updated the device UI design to a more organized and modern style. Take a look and let us know what you think!

  • Max connected client limit added to wireless settings

    You can now set the maximum number of clients that are allowed to connect to a specified radio. This can be useful in creating a more balanced wifi environment.

For example, if your AP has a lot of clients that support both 5 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz, and you enable bandsteering, all of the clients will attempt to connect to the 5 Ghz radio only. In order to balance the clients out among the two radios, you can specify the max number of clients that are allowed to connect on the 5 Ghz radio. This will effectively push some of the clients back to the 2.4 Ghz radio.

Other items of interest:

  • We exposed firewall and port forwarding (iptables) rules in the UI
  • We exposed radsec support for hotspot (coova chilli)
  • We vastly improved client session handling in the cloud mgmt agent
  • We increased the 5 Ghz power levels (in software) for the Spark and Sunspot under some country codes. This should provide you with much better coverage.
  • Fixed some stats overflow bugs which caused spikes in client data and utilization > 100% on the cloud
  • Other bandsteering/band balancing improvements
  • We changed LED colors for stand alone mode. No more alternating green and blue.
  • Improved client WDS mode robustness
  • Added auto channel improvements
  • Fixed an empty packet capture file bug
  • Fixed an issue where the WDS client might not connect 100% of the time if security is set to OPEN
  • Fixed a bug where a removed user login account would still have access to the device until you rebooted

How do I get the new firmware?

You can download new firmware from our support site's firmware download page or upgrade from the cloud.