First Published: December 18, 2017

Last Updated: July 3, 2018

Release Notes for Cisco Resilient Mesh Release 5.7.27

These release notes contain the latest information about using Cisco Resilient Mesh (formerly known as CG-Mesh) with IPv6 Resilient Mesh Endpoints (RMEs) such as meters, the Cisco IR500 Series WPAN Gateways Range Extenders.

Cisco Resilient Mesh is an embedded network stack for Smart Grid assets within a Neighborhood Area Network. Cisco Resilient Mesh provides end-to-end IPv6 communication and implements open-standard protocols at every layer in the network stack, including but not limited to IEEE 802.15.4e/g, 6LoWPAN, IPv6, RPL, UDP, and CoAP. In Smart Grid assets such as residential electric meters, the Cisco Resilient Mesh software functions within a dedicated Communications Module that connects to an Application Module through a PPP link.


Note

For a detailed description of the Cisco Resilient Mesh software in Release 5.7.x, refer to Cisco Connected Grid WPAN Module for CGR 1000 Series Installation and Cisco Resilient Mesh Configuration Guide.

New Features for This Release

The following table lists the enhancements specific to this release.

Table 1. Enhancements for Cisco Resilient Mesh Release 5.7.27

Platform

Enhancement

Description

First Cisco IOS/CG-OS Release that Supports the Feature

IR510

IR530

Support to configure adaptive modulation between FSK and OFDM

Enable adaptive modulation to dynamically adapt to changes in channel conditions to provide efficient communication and maximize the throughput under good channel conditions.

15.7(3)M1

IR510

IR530

Peer to peer routing

Support storing mode of RPL to enhance peer to peer packet transporting.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

IPv6 support on Ethernet port

Support IPv6 on the Ethernet port of IR510.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

Multiple Forwarding Mapping Rule (FMR) support

Support 10 entries of FMR rules on IR510.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

Configurable leaf modes

Support to select a Cisco Resilient Mesh device with BBU as a better RPL routing node than a device without BBU by configuring leaf nodes, to provide a more reliable routing path which can quickly recover from power outage issue.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

Raw socket for UDP

Support to use UDP for Raw Socket Transport for low power mesh network.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

QoS marking for Ethernet and serial ports

Support to configure DSCP for the Ethernet ports and Serial ports on IR509 and IR510, to change the packet priority.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

Static NAT entries

Support 15 entries with portIncrement for continuous port mapping.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

Ethernet port security alarm

Security alarm if the Ethernet port is disconnected from IR510.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

IR510 Dying Gasp

Support to transmit PON and PRN to timely and efficiently report power outages, helping a Utility to quickly react to the event.

15.7(3)M1

IR500

MAC layer QoS

MAC layer QoS support on Lowpan interface.

15.7(3)M1

CGM WPAN

Dual-Phy support

Support for RF/PLC dual phy mode.

15.7(3)M1

CGM-WPAN-OFDM

Support for multiple modulations and data-rates

Support of OFDM data rates: 1200, 800, 200, and 50 kbps.

15.7(3)M1

EV8600

Platform enabled

Enable RF-Only Cisco Resilient Mesh to run on EV8600.

-

EV8610

Platform enabled

Enable RF&PLC Dual-PHY Cisco Resilient Mesh to run on EV8610.

-

System Requirements

If you plan to run Cisco Resilient Mesh Release 5.7.27, you must have the following required hardware and software components:

Platform

Minimum Cisco IOS/CG-OS Software Release Required

Cisco 1000 Series Connected Grid Router

Cisco IOS Release 15.7(3)M1

Cisco IR510 (SW-IR510-WPAN-5X)

cg-mesh-dagw-5.7.27-604ab01-RELEASE-ir510.bin

Cisco IR530 (SW-IR530-WPAN-5X)

cg-mesh-node-5.7.27-604ab01-RELEASE-ir530.bin

WPAN module: CGM-WPAN-FSK-NA (LIC-CGR1K-WPAN-ip)

cg-mesh-bridge-5.7.27-604ab01-itron30.bin

WPAN module for IR510 (SW-CGM-WPAN-5X)

cg-mesh-bridge-5.7.27-604ab01-ir510.bin

Supported Software Features

This section covers the supported software features.

Compromised Node Eviction

A compromised node is one where the device can no longer be trusted by the network and/or operators. Nodes within an IEEE 802.15.4 PAN must possess the currently valid Group Temporal Key (GTK) to send and receive link-layer messages. The GTK is shared among all devices within the PAN and is refreshed periodically or on-demand. By communicating new GTKs to only trusted devices, compromised nodes may be evicted from the network.

RPL

In its route-over architecture, Cisco Resilient Mesh performs routing at the network layer using the Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL).

Cisco Resilient Mesh requires a Cisco 1000 Series Connected Grid Router (CGR) to provide connectivity to other IPv6 networks. The CGR (Field Area Router (FAR)) must serve as a RPL Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) root and store information reported in DAO messages to forward datagrams to individual nodes within the mesh network.

6LoWPAN

The 6LoWPAN adaptation layer adapts IPv6 to operate efficiently over low-power and lossy links such as IEEE 802.15.4. The adaptation layer sits between the IPv6 and IEEE 802.15.4 layers and provides IPv6 header compression, IPv6 datagram fragmentation, and optimized IPv6 Neighbor Discovery.

Frequency Hopping

Cisco Resilient Mesh implements frequency hopping across 64 channels with 400-kHz spacing in the 902 to 928 MHz ISM band. The frequency-hopping protocol used by Cisco Resilient Mesh maximizes the use of the available spectrum by allowing multiple sender-receiver pairs to communicate simultaneously on different channels. The frequency hopping protocol also mitigates the negative effects of narrowband interferers.

Firmware Upgrade Procedure

The Cisco Resilient Mesh bridge firmware can be installed by CLI or from IoT FND.

For more information on upgrading the firmware, see the latest Release Notes for Cisco 1000 Series Connected Grid Routers for Cisco IOS Release at: www.cisco.com/go/cgr1000-docs.

FND Configuration

Cisco Resilient Mesh solution is managed and monitored by the Cisco IoT Field Network Director (FND), which provides the necessary backend network configuration, monitoring, event notification services, network stack firmware upgrade, as well as FND outage and meter registration. IoT FND also retrieves statistics on network traffic from the interface.


Note

For a detailed description on the Cisco Resilient Mesh CLI, refer to Cisco Connected Grid WPAN Module for CGR 1000 Series Installation and Cisco Resilient Mesh Configuration Guide (Cisco IOS).


Note

IR510 and IR530 will be supported only with FND Release 4.1 or greater. Refer to the Cisco IoT Field Network Director User Guides for details.

CoAP Simple Management Protocol

Cisco Resilient Mesh implements the CoAP Simple Management Protocol (CSMP) for remote configuration, monitoring, and event generation over the IPv6 network. The CSMP service is exposed over both the mesh and serial interfaces.

Power-outage Notification

Cisco Resilient Mesh supports timely and efficient reporting of power outages and restorations.

In the event of a power outage, Cisco Resilient Mesh enters power-outage notification mode and the node stops listening for traffic to conserve energy. Cisco Resilient Mesh triggers functions to conserve energy by notifying the communication module and neighboring nodes of the outage. The outage notification is sent using the same security settings as any other UDP/IPv6 datagram transmission.

In the event of a power restoration, a Cisco Resilient Mesh node sends a restoration notification using the same communication method as the outage notification. The communication modules unaffected by the power outage event deliver the restoration notification.

Registration of Endpoint

You can register and manage Cisco Resilient Mesh Endpoints (RMEs) such as (meters) using the CSMP protocol.

Limitations and Restrictions

Cisco recommends that you review this section before you begin working with the module. These are known limitations that will not be fixed, and there is not always a workaround for these issues. Some features might not work as documented, and some features might be affected by recent changes to the CG-OS router hardware or software.

  • CSCub49104

    Symptom: Output from show mesh-security session all does not show all current mesh security sessions.

    Conditions: This issue occurs in the output of the show mesh-security session all command.

    Workaround: To find out the mesh-key status of a meter, use the show mesh-security session mac <mac-address> command.

Caveats

This section addresses the Open and Resolved caveats that are relevant to Cisco Resilient Mesh. This section also provides information on how to use the Bug Tool Kit to find further details on the caveats.

Open Caveats

This section summarizes open caveats to the Cisco Resilient Mesh.

  • CSCvf50506

    IR510: node fast reform online with backup parent takes more than 20 mins.

  • CSCvf78106

    IR510: Node switch parent frequently on OTA testbed.

  • CSCvg11696

    IR510: IPv6 Ethernet address is shown as lowpan address.

  • CSCvg13367

    Node could not display more than 13 PLC hardware link neighbors in TLV95.

  • CSCvg87873

    1/1000 Duplicated Packets on PLC media when node have only one parent.

  • CSCvh03696

    Node probably fails to sync with bcast schedule in master-slave mode.

Accessing Bug Search Tool

You can use the Bug Search Tool to find information about caveats for this release, including a description of the problems and available workarounds. The Bug Search Tool lists both open and resolved caveats.

To access Bug Search Tool, you need the following items:

  • Internet connection

  • Web browser

  • Cisco.com user ID and password

To access the Bug Search Tool, enter the following URL:

https://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch/search

Feature History

Feature

Cisco IOS/CG-OS Release

Feature information

Cisco Resilient Mesh firmware 5.7.27

Cisco IOS Release 15.7(3)M1

Cisco Resilient Mesh enhancement.

Related Documentation

Consult the following resources for related information about the Connected Grid WPAN Module for technical assistance.