The LoRa Basics™ Station protocol simplifies management of large scale LoRaWAN networks. LoRa Basics™ Station is the preferred way of connecting Gateways to The Things Stack.
This section contains information for connecting your gateway to The Things Stack using LoRa Basics™ Station and its subprotocols.
Advantages of LoRa Basics™ Station
Some of the advantages of LoRa Basics™ Station over the legacy UDP Packet Forwarder are:
- Centralized Update and Configuration Management
- TLS and Token-based Authentication
- Centralized Channel-Plan Management
- No Dependency on Local Time Keeping
Authentication
The Things Stack supports TLS server authentication and client token. This requires a *.trust file and a *.key file. See the LNS and CUPS sections for information about getting these files. The Things Stack does not support TLS client authentication and does not provide a *.cert file.
LNS and CUPS Sub Protocols
LoRa Basics™ Station contains two sub protocols for connecting Gateways to Network Servers, LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS) and Configuration and Update Server (CUPS).
LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS)
LNS establishes a data connection between a LoRa Basics™ Station gateway and a Network Server (in this case, The Things Stack). LoRa® uplink and downlink frames are exchanged through this data connection. The LNS protocol is required for sending and receiving LoRaWAN data.
Configuration and Update Server (CUPS)
CUPS allows a Network Server to configure gateways remotely, and to update gateway firmware. CUPS is not required for sending and receiving LoRaWAN data, but it can greatly simplify the management of gateways. Configuring CUPS will also automatically retrieve LNS credentials and configure LNS on your gateway.
More information about LoRa Basics™ Station is available at Semtech’s Developer Portal