I tried searching for an answer to this, but couldn't find anything definitive.  Is there a procedure for doing firmware updates on remote nodes?  It seems the firmware update is easy, but after the flash the node needs to be completely reconfigured, which requires either wired or wifi access from a computer.  Is there some other way of doing this so that the config isn't wiped and the remote node remains in the mesh and not need reconfigured from scratch?  How are people managing firmware updates with a large mesh?

On a Linksys node there is not enough available memory for a remote type upgrade. On Ubiquiti nodes, it is a feature that is in work. I believe it will be in the 3.1 release. 

For some of the beta versions a patch version was published that updated the node to the latest beta. But for a major upgrade that may not always work. It was easy to update remote nodes with a patch. 

There is a utilitity in openwrt that with a some modification to the user interface shows promise for a remote update. An early alpha version did not work for me, but it is being worked on. This is a feature that is definitely needed and the development team knows it. 

I put together a set of three nanostation nodes to perform a drive by update. The theory was node 1 on the old firmware.  Use it to login to the node to be updated and start the update. Node 2 was using AirOS in client mode to connect to node being updated using the meshnode ssid to set up the node. The third node run the new firmware and was used to verify the updated node was working. 

I updated several nodes this way. Pull into a parking lot close to the node to be updated set up the nodes and work my way through the set. Not ideal but it worked.

Clint, AE5CA

The ticket is at http://ubnt.hsmm-mesh.org/products/BBHN/ticket/54