[Soekris] Soekris Net6501 alternatives.
Has anyone tried this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0741F634J product line as a replacement for the Soekris Net6501 use case? It looks a little pricey but it also looks like its got enough CPU to run the 1Gb ethernet ports at full speed. I found this when this video: https://youtu.be/bK2_ROQrMcM In my feed. It describes the author/presenter's choices for running pfSense. I run OpenBSD but it looks like this is just a low power PC that should run any Free Unix OS. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*)_____ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging
On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 03:30:01PM -0500, Michael Stone wrote: > On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 07:04:02PM +0100, Harald Welte wrote: > > The problem is that there's basically no alternative to the net6501 on the > > market > > if you require 1U, fanless, small (short 1U enclosure), and a single PCIe > > slot. > [ ...snip... ] Sorry about the double reply the Fan issue deserves some light. In short, if noise is an issue, spend money on Noctua fans. For gamers, fans that move air quietly are a huge consideration. I was amazed at how quiet my son's gaming PC was in normal usage. When I could hear it, it was always the GPU fan making the noise. the Noctua case fans don't make a peep. If you are building a server, you may have to go to 2U. But quiet to silent can be done. My NAS is an Intel Core i5 with 35W TDP and a Noctua NH-L9i CPU cooler and a pair of Noctua 90mm case fans. The cooler + cPU fan is rated for up to 95W TDP. The server is in my basement so ambient never gets above 80F. Because the CPU TDP is so low, I may not have mounted the CPU fan. But I probably did. With the case closed, this PC is close to silent. -- -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*)_____________ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging
On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 12:42:38PM -0700, Bryan wrote: [ ...snip... ] > > Soekris is really missing out on this I think. As you mention, there is > still demand for the net6501 and nothing really available to replace it. > I think that if the demand were there, someone would have bought the assets from Soren and continued the line. But In this case, I think that our requirements were actually quite specialized. That's why no one replaced Soren. Further, I think that this market will be completely absorbed by Raspberry Pi over the long haul. The Soekris machines are great if you are looking for a relatively large amount of computing power in a low wattage, small form-factor platform. But they fell short on memory capacity and eventually price. I've replaced all of my Soekris Net65xx units with SuperMicro 1U machines that use Intel Atom D525 based motherboards. I did this because the Net65xxs all succumbed to the "Red Light of Death". Used, the D525 units are cheaper than the Net6501 and you can have up to either 8G or 16G of ram at "Best Buy" prices. The machines I have are in Front access 1U chassis that are three times as deep as the Soekris. Stock they don't have the same network density as a Soekris but the motherboard is dual port Intel Gigabit and Intel Gigabit cards cost $20 / port on Amazon in 1x, 2x, and 4x varieties. I don't mean to disrepect the Soekris stuff. In it's day it was awesome but now that the Net6501s have begun to hit the "dying limb of the bathtub curve", there are other options so I'm not going to cry for them. [ ...snip... ] -- -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*)_____________ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Flaky ethernet port on net5501-60
On Mon, Feb 01, 2016 at 10:11:27PM +, Hendrickson, Kenneth wrote: > Often hotels will bring you to a web page, where you have to enter a > code and/or give a password and/or click "I agree" to a terms of > service statement, before they will start passing packets. > > So you might have to do this on a laptop or something first. Then > plug the cable into the Soekris box, and start up networking again. > So when I tested this I plugged my laptop into the ethernet first and verified the captive portal and outbound path to the internet. I've been in a lot of hotels that have both WiFi and ethernet where the ethernet is dead. The results I got were: laptop: ethernet -- link, initial DHCP address, agreed to captive portal, connected to internet; soekris: vr0 -- No link; no dhcp, no captive portal, no internet; vr2 -- link, initial DHCP address, agreed to captive portal, connected to internet; At this point I assumed a dead vr0 port and since the Net5501-xx has four and I only needed two, I moved on. What puzzles me is that I expected the vr0 port to remain dead when I returned home. And that's not what happened. I completely believe that the hotel's wiring could be the root issue. If that's the case there's not much that I can do. Does anyone know if there's something in the Soekris that would exhibit these symptoms? Could this be a weak power supply? I won't be travelling again until late June. If the issue comes up again I'd like to have a strategy to figure out whats going on. If weak wiring in the hotel is the issue could it be weak enough that it affects all four ethernet ports on my Net5501? -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...____ooO..._ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Flaky ethernet port on net5501-60
On Mon, Feb 01, 2016 at 10:23:59PM +0100, Wim Vandeputte Mailing list only wrote: > > Hey Chris, > > On Mon, Feb 01, 2016 at 03:08:42PM -0500, Christopher Sean Hilton wrote: > > Has anyone seen something like this before: One port on the box > > doesn't work in some locations, but works in others? > > > > I'm curious about the cause of this. > > hey, hotel networks are notoriously flakey and badly wired... > > but the vr chip is supposed to be auto-negociating and can deal with > cross wires... but how about you try to force it to a lower setting > like 10 Mbit instead of 100 Mbit and half duplex instead of full duplex, > next time you run into the trouble? > Thanks for the helpful ideas here Wim! I replied on the other answer also. I don't remember trying to force a slower negotiation before I changed ports. Next time i'm in that situation I'll throw that solution on my list. -- Chris -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*)____.___o____..___..o...ooO..._ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
[Soekris] Flaky ethernet port on net5501-60
Good afternoon list: I have a net5501-60 that I pack in my carry on luggage as a hotel router/access point. The box runs OpenBSD. It's main function is to connect to the hotel wifi and provide a natted network for all of my electronic gear (ipads, iPhones, a couple of laptops etc.) It solves the issue I have with my family of limits to the hotel's wifi when I travel. The last time I travelled with this thing I noticed that the first ethernet port: "Eth 0" or vr0, would not see a signal from either of the hotels where I stayed. I figured that the port went south and since there are three others, two of which are unused, I wouldn't worry about it. I hooked it up to my network yesterday and since I didn't know what port it was on, and I hadn't connected to it over the console port, I tried connecting via the "dead" vr0 port. Imagine my surprise when that port worked again here at home. Has anyone seen something like this before: One port on the box doesn't work in some locations, but works in others? I'm curious about the cause of this. Thanks -- Chris signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] I see development of the net6801 has been dropped.
On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 08:45:47PM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote: > Presumably you are using a 110V input? (and I wonder if a Kill-A-Watt?) > > I have a net5501 (with 40G PATA spinning disk) that I run on 12V, from > several AGM batteries and a float supply. I find that it draws 0.5A at > 12-13V, which is about 6W. However, if I fed it 6V instead, it would > draw the same 0.5A and be about 3W. > > I know the net6501 runs on 12V (or really enough about 5V to make the > regulator work) as well, and that's attractive. Are there options for > the supermicro, or anything else, for 12V, other than a regular > inverter? I'm on 110AC and yes the meter is a Kill-a-watt. The SuperMicro machine would certainly not work on 12V. I not saying that the SuperMicro machine can replace the Soekris in every use case. For my usage though, and that of anyone who's gonna plug it into the wall for power, I'm saying it's not a bad deal. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...____ooO..._ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] pgpttcMLUfjwg.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] I see development of the net6801 has been dropped.
On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 11:28:27PM +0200, Iustin Pop wrote: > Given that just the Atom processor on the Supermicro has a TDP of 20W, I > doubt that the whole system is not significantly more. Otherwise, why > would they ship with a *200W* PSU? > That's the same processor that was in the proposed Net6801-70 (Atom C2758) Note well that the Net6801-70 is listed as system power between 9W Idle and 31W active: http://beta.soekris.net/net6801.html. I'm not sure that TDP is a good indicator of the power that the CPU uses. In my case I took the precaution of running my SuperMicro box on a Watt Meter for a couple of weeks. It averaged 25W. The processor TDP is 13W and the power supply is a 200W unit. My box has 4GB of RAM and 2.5" form factor 64GB SSD. My Soekris Net6501-50 with the same hard drive averages 18W on the same watt meter. I suspect the 200W on the power supply is the maximum it can supply and that it's the smallest power supply that SuperMicro has. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...____ooO..._________ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] pgpVuiykyREyL.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] I see development of the net6801 has been dropped.
On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 10:27:23PM +0200, Vadim Troshchinskiy wrote: > That makes sense, but it's still a pity not to have a higher spec > machine to move to, even if it's not that particular model. > > Though on the other hand it makes a fair amount of sense: I've been > searching for alternatives and the latest Atom is about 3 years old! It > seems like this market doesn't see a lot of activity, unfortunately. Having a higher spec machine to move to depends on a lot of things but it's not worth speculating on that in this list. One thing that's always surprised me is that Soekris has not built a machine with socketed RAM. I'm sure that there's a good reason for it but since my load tends to be more memory than CPU footprint, non socketed RAM makes Soekris stuff less desirable. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...____ooO..._________ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] pgp95QcD2j8BV.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] I see development of the net6801 has been dropped.
On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 06:26:33PM +0200, ck+soekrist...@bl4ckb0x.de wrote: > Hi Jerome, > > > Jerome Ibanes <jiba...@gmail.com> hat am 19. Oktober 2015 um 01:09 > > geschrieben: > > Does anyone has experience with Supermicro SYS-5018A-FTN4? > > > > Specs: http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1U/5018/SYS-5018A-FTN4.cfm > > Quote: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101837 > > > > The quality is certainly not comparable to what we've seen from > > Soekris, but this seems to be an acceptable solution for the price. > > I am using one of them and pretty happy. IMHO it's a good Soekris replacement. > I'm replacing my 6501 with a 1U SuperMicro Atom box that's router specific. By router specific I mean that the chassis mounts backwards so the ports are on the front. For me the advantages of the SuperMicro are Price and Expansion: o Price: The SuperMicro box was $349 in 1U form with is about the same as a 6501 in the non-rackmount chassis. The 6501 in rackmount chassis is over $100 more expensive; o Expansion: The SuperMicro box takes standard RAM so I can side the RAM to my needs are commodity prices. My box has 4GB of RAM. The power requirements are between the two comparable at 20W. As far as quality goes I would have to say that both seem equal and the SuperMicro may have the edge. I'm rather happy not to have my hands cut up by the sharp edges inside the Soekris Chassis. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...ooO..._ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] pgpugjzVLDUN3.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] I see development of the net6801 has been dropped.
On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 10:33:26AM -0700, Dan Shechter wrote: > Hi Conrad, > > What about Serial console, especially for the BIOS? > If you look at the pictures of that box behind the links you'll see that it has a front panel DB9 serial port. When I setup my SuperMicro machine, which is earlier but similar, I setup the serial console on OpenBSD without trouble. Managing the the BIOS via serial doesn't seem to be an option but out-of-band access is no problem. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...ooO..._____ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] pgpU7F7IJ4Aqy.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] I see development of the net6801 has been dropped.
When I originally saw this thread I didn't think much about it but given my experience, it makes sense. I'm not sure that there's a place in the market for the Net6801. Consider that there are several Intel Atom based machines which are only slightly more expensive than the current Net6501-70. Many of these machines are based on motherboards designed by and build by or for Intel. These machines take commodity RAM and Power Supplies so they are cheaper to initially configure and to maintain. Purchase cost in order: Net6501-50, standard case: ... $346 / $163 Net6501-70, standard case: ... $470 / $39 Net6501-50, 1U case: . $473 / $36 SuperMicro SYS-5018A-FTN4, 1U case, no RAM: .. $509 / Net6501-70, 1U case: . $597 / -$88 The problem with the Net6801 is that there is no price point for it. -- Chris __o "All I was trying to do was get home from work." _`\<,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...ooO..._____ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] pgp3nLWHXAL7U.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] FreeBSD-recent + nanobsd for 4801?
On Wed, Jul 01, 2015 at 11:38:15AM +, Christian Weisgerber wrote: On 2015-07-01, Harlan Stenn har...@everett.org wrote: For a long while I've been gently trying to get FreeBSD/nanobsd built for a 4801 and installed on a Sandisk 4G CF card. Have you considered a standard FreeBSD install? A CF - PATA adapter might be helpful. If you are going to use Virtual Machines I find it more useful to setup a FreeBSD VM as an nfs/tftp server for remote installs. I find the OpenBSD setup here much much easier but the FreeBSD setup isn't impossible. I'm running FreeBSD 10, as an NTP server, on a net5501 using 2G of CF. I originally installed FreeBSD 9.x and keep updating it with freebsd-update(8). Even 2G of flash is enough for a standard install. The information at http://wiki.soekris.info/Installing_FreeBSD is to be taken with a grain of salt. E.g., for the net5501 its recommendations for a custom kernel include Add 'options CPU_SOEKRIS' and 'options CPU_GEODE'. However, CPU_SOEKRIS only concerns the net4xxx and CPU_GEODE isn't referenced anywhere in the 10-STABLE kernel source. Regarding the net4801, CPU_SOEKRIS and CPU_ELAN_* only appear to concern the GPIO port, so if you don't hook up anything there, my best guess is that a standard install with GENERIC should work just fine. The net4801 is supposed to be perfect as an inexpensive gps driven clock for ntpd. But I thought that having CPU_ELAN and CPU_ELAN_PPS in the kernel added precision to the timekeeping? -- Chris __o All I was trying to do was get home from work. _`\,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...ooO..._ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] Net5501 + SanDisk SSD?
I use sandisk 2.5 format ssd in both net5501 and net6501 boxes. Works fine with free and openbsd in my shop. I'm using the 32gb and 64gb products. -- Chris e: chris -at- vindaloo -dot- com p: two zero three - five two six - five two two two On Jun 18, 2015, at 5:25 PM, Martin Johnson martin.johnson.uk.li...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi, A UK supplier is offering the SanDisk SDSSDP-064G-G25 64GB SSD SATA 6Gb/s 2.5” drive for UKP 30, which seems pretty reasonable. http://www.dabs.com/products/sandisk-64gb-ssd-sata-6gb-s-2-5--solid-state-drive-870W.html?refs=5245-4158-11catid=15004src=3 Has anyone tried these drives on a NET5501? I have a NET5501 acting as a router/firewall running the pfSense firewall OS from a CF card. It’s doing some slightly odd things so I figure I should try a fresh OS install - which may as well be on an SSD drive, not a CF card, now that the SSD drives are getting cheaper. Thanks for any info, - Martin ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] spontaneous reboot with large packet flows on net5501+lan1741
On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 02:21:22PM +, Conrad Kostecki wrote: The net5501 manual states: Please note that there is limited power available for the three PCI expansion connectors. There are only 20W available on the 3.3V power pins and 5V pins combined. If a 2.5” hard disk is used, it will also need to share the available power. An onboard DC-DC converter supplies +12V @ 0.3A and 12V @ 0.1A to the PCI connector. If the board is powered by 12V then a bypass circuit will supply up to 1A of the 12V to the PCI connector. Thank you! From this I'm can guess that my issue may not be the OS upgrade from OpenBSD 5.2 to 5.5. It might be that when I upgraded to 5.5 I also turned on the automatic CPU throttling. It might be a good guess that my power situation was marginal before and that allowing the CPU to throttle up to higher speed is occasionally dropping the power below what the level where the PCI bus remains stable? That will be rather easy to test. One thing I do know is that the Intel gigabit boards generate a lot of heat. In fact the heat is the reason I upgraded to the larger rack mount case. -- Chris __o All I was trying to do was get home from work. _`\,_ -Rosa Parks ___(*)/_(*).___o..___..o...ooO..._ Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com] ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] spontaneous reboot with large packet flows on net5501+lan1741
On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 01:37:51PM -0500, Andrew Atrens wrote: Hi Nix, It's almost certainly a power issue as power draw for the lan card will not be a static thing - ie will increase when transmitting packets vs idle. That's an intersting theory. I also run an external nic in the PCI slot of a Net5501-60. In my case the OS is OpenBSD 5.5 and the nic card is an Intel dual Gigabit PCI-X unit. I also experience reboots of this configuration under high packet flows. In my case though my machine is in the Net5501 rack mount case with the 5.0A power supply. I will arrange to test by swapping to a newer 5501 rack mount case and retesting. Thanks -- Chris ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] GigE ports for a 5501
On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 03:30:09PM -0500, Erik Anderson wrote: On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 2:43 PM, ED Fochler soek...@liquidbinary.com wrote: A fair number of old, cheap 1g ethernet cards will work in the net5501. Take note of the necessary second notch in the PCI pin section on the card. I can absolutely verify that the netgear GA311 rev.a1 works. :-) http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-GA311-Gigabit-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B0001NYJ58 caveats: gigabit ethernet cards tend to consume a couple of watts when working at gbit speeds. In a normal computer you don???t notice, but the additional power draw and heat load can be significant in a small closed box. Also you won???t get full gbit out of it. The internal bus for PCI and/or memory will limit you. expect 400mbit for the simplest of tasks. Great info. Thanks Ed. It does sound like if I need to route at near-GigE speeds, I'll need to upgrade my board. I use the Intel PCI-x GigE cards. In (Free|Open)BSD x86 these cards are handled by the em driver. Although the Net5501 doesn't have a 64bit PCI-x slot the card works in the 32bit PCI slot. I'm forwarding packets at 120Mbit per second with is pedestrian at best and the card generates quite a bit of heat but it works. -- Chris ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
