Changing Wifi Settings

2019 status: Out of date

Follow the instructions below to change your wifi network name or wifi password. You will need a laptop with an SSH client and you will need to know the root password on your server.

This is an advanced task. If done improperly it can leave you with an unusable system. Please only do this if you are familiar with Unix.

Load the wifi AP admin page on your laptop

On your laptop, open a browser and navigate to the administration page for your wifi AP. (If you have a Ubiquiti AP, navigate to the IP address you were given, and log in with the credentials you were given.)

Find the place where you edit the network name and password. (If you have a Ubiquiti AP, select Wifi and then click the Edit link next to the wifi network.) When you edit these settings, your AP will require you to click Apply or reboot the AP in order for your changes to take effect. Edit the network name and password to the desired new values but don't apply your changes just yet, just keep this browser window open. You need wifi to be up with the existing network name and password so you can communicate with the server.

Edit the settings on the server

On your laptop, join the existing wifi network for which the server is currently configured. Then:

ssh -p 9022 root@server

Enter the root password to log in. Then:

cd /usr/share/buendia/site

In this directory, you will find a series of numbered files. Settings are read from all of these files, in numeric order, so that higher-numbered files can override the settings of lower-numbered files. For example, if the NETWORKING_PASSWORD setting exists in both 10-networking and 57-passwords, the latter setting will take precedence. You can type buendia-settings to see all the settings that are currently in effect.

Use cat or vi to create and edit a text file in this directory with a higher two-digit number than any of the existing files, for example:

vi 90-msf-magburaka-network

It is a good idea to name the file with something associated with the deployment site or network setup, to help remind you later when you are looking at these files.

Put two lines in this file to set the new wifi network name and new wifi password:

NETWORKING_SSID=xyz
NETWORKING_PASSWORD=xyzpassword

(This example sets the network name to xyz and the password to xyzpassword.)

You can also change whether the Buendia server is an AP (i.e. creates its own wifi network) or not (i.e. joins an existing wifi network), and whether it is a DHCP/DNS server or not, by setting these variables to 1 or 0:

NETWORKING_AP=1
NETWORKING_DHCP_DNS_SERVER=1

Save your file. Type buendia-settings and look for the NETWORKING settings to confirm that your changes have had the intended effect.

Now type:

buendia-reconfigure

This step will cause the server to disconnect from the wifi network, terminating your SSH session.

The server will have the new settings, which don't match the wifi AP, so it will vanish from the network. Furthermore, since the server is the DHCP provider for the network, no devices will be able to join the network. Your laptop will retain its DHCP lease for a short period of time.

Apply the new settings to the wifi AP

Now click Apply or Restart or whatever is necessary in your open browser window to apply your new settings on the wifi AP.

This step will change the wifi network, causing your laptop to disconnect.

Reconnect your laptop

On your laptop, find and join the new wifi network using the new wifi password.

In a browser on your laptop, you should now be able to go to http://server/ and load the server status page.

Reconnect the tablets

On all the existing tablets, switch to the new wifi network and wifi password. In the "Settings" app, go to Wifi. Long-press on the old network and choose Forget network. Then select and join the new network.

At this point you should be done. To confirm, you can start the app on a tablet, go to the ALL PATIENTS list, and pull down from the top of the screen to refresh. If the refresh finishes spinning with no error messages appearing, you're good.