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WL-700gE »

Asus has discontinued the WL-700gE

You can still find units on eBay, but there's no evidence that the WL-700gE is still in production.

Will Asus replace the WL-700gE with a newer, bigger, better unit? With luck the answer will be "yes" ....but as of this writing, many months after the WL-700gE was discontinued, it seems unlikely.

Process Remains Valid for Additional or Alternative Hardware

Regardless, we have learned a lot so far about how to that will translate to other hardware moving forward. Sure there will different challenges than the ones we face with the WL-700gE (e.g. wireless and hard disk) on a different device, but certainly the approach is something much more clear to us now.

The idea of starting FreeSA with new hardware is not a thrilling one. None the less, the approach is clearly sound:
  • find eligible hardware
    • hard disk
    • firmware capable of netbooting
    • supports a modern linux kernel, possibly with patches from projects like OpenWRT
    • (serial) console
    • at least two network interfaces
      • ideally at least two wired ethernet interfaces and a wireless interface for 1 wired WAN, 1 wired LAN, 1 wireless LAN
  • build a cross-toolchain
  • build a kernel with NFS
  • build a root filesystem for NFS mounting
  • netboot the box with kernel referencing NFS root filesystem
  • CLFS the hard disk
  • build a SecondStageBootLoader for flash

Alternative hardware possibilities

There is a lot going on in the small and embedded space. It's disappointing that most of this activity is in the x86-compatible world; ideally we'd like to see a non-x86 platform. Non-x86 means that binaries targeted to run on our desktops will not run on our server appliance, and more importantly, exploits targeting x86 systems will not be able to run on our server appliance. Unfortunately the trend towards an x86 monoculture seems to leaking into the embedded space.

Very few generic embedded boards are likely to have everything. However, many have "miniPCI" and "PC/104" expansion bus options. Perhaps we can start with a device that meets some of our criteria and add the missing one(s) through an expansion board.

Non-critical Features, Preferences, and Wish List:
  • Non-x86
  • The WL-700gE has four ports for eth1 -- in other words, it has a four-port switch for machines on the inside of the firewall. That's a very nice feature.
  • The more wired ethernet ports the better. If we had eth0, eth1, and eth2 we could (for example) have two upstream WAN connections as well as a wired LAN connection allowing load-balancing or fail-over with our upstream connections.
  • JTAG would be nice, since it eliminates the risk of bricking our development boxes entirely.
  • Working kexec would be nice, since it makes the second-stage bootloader a lot more flexible.
  • Firmware which supports booting from the hard disk would be nice; that would eliminate the need for a second-stage boot loader.
  • Case that is somewhat compact yet allows easy access to the disk would be great.
    • A little extra room in the case if there are open expansion points of any kind would be nice -- that would allow others to add new and interesting things more easily.
  • USB for expansion (The WL-700gE has three USB 2.0 ports)
  • Serial console is probably nicer than VGA + keyboard
  • Low power consumption -- the lower, the nicer.
  • Multiple potential suppliers of the hardware

Open Hardware

Platforms like Beagle Board have schematics available and can be sourced from a variety of suppliers.

Putting all the features together to make a list like what FreeSA is looking for is a challenge.

Non-x86 Ideas

Router Board

The RB433UAH has three miniPCI slots and three Ethernet ports plus USB for about $165 so it seems like it should be possible to add a wireless card for about $20, and an IDE/SATA card for under $50.

RB433UAH
  • 680MHz Atheros CPU -- MIPS-BE
  • 128MB
  • 3 Ethernet
  • 2 USB
  • microSD
  • 3 miniPCI
  • What about serial console?
  • How hard would it be to to use a real disk or the microSD as the root filesystem?

The RB435G has five miniPCI slots, 256MB RAM.

The RB600A for $195 and RB800 for $365 clock in at higher CPU speeds, more RAM, and have gigabit ethernet. Interestingly, they each lack USB, yet they also have 4 miniPCI so we'd fill one miniPCI with a USB module

Asus RT-N16

The Asus RT-N16 lacks a hard disk so it's more like the WL-500 than the WL-700gE

AirLive wireless products

The AirLive WMU-6500FS is one of the closest to the WL-700gE we've seen specs for, will be 125 Euro if it's ever actually available. It may have been end-of-lifed already?

  • 32-bit RISC CPU (mips?)
  • 4 MB Flash
  • 32 MB SDRAM
  • 3.5" SATA or IDE
  • 802.11g
  • eth0
  • no eth1
  • 2 USB 2.0 ports

The AirLive WMU-6000FS is the smaller form-factor version, and can be purchased for about 100 Euro including tax.

  • RISC 2000 CPU
  • 4 MB Flash
  • 32 MB SDRAM
  • 2.5" IDE
  • 802.11g
  • eth0
  • no eth1
  • 2 USB 2.0 ports

The lack of two wired ethernet ports means that we'd have to use a USB ethernet dongle. ...or something similar.

Some embedded ARM boards

http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7437674277.html

Looks like it could be a very nice device, sadly it looks like http://www.linkgearlinux.com/ is down, so it might be vaporware.

RouterStation Pro

may be EndOfLife already.

  • 680MHz Atherosa AR7161 CPU (MIPS)
  • 1 port Gigabit WAN port (eth0)
  • 3 port Gigabit Ethernet Switch (eth1)
  • 128MB RAM
  • 16MB Flash
  • 3 mini-PCI slots
  • RS232/DB9 serial console, pins for UART and JTAG
  • USB 2.0 connector
  • SDIO slot

The board is reasonably priced at about 90 USD.

Specs are here, which also shows pinouts. There's also a software setup guide that has a section for installing new firmware images and some other stuff.

We would have to add wifi (which can run up to 200 USD including pigtails and antennae -- of course, cheaper wireless cards exist, but we need to ensure good kernel support) and a disk controller .... which adds another 60 USD or so, plus the hard disk itself which is probably another 50 USD.

There's a freebsd page about this hardware, which says that it uses RedBoot as the boot loader. The factory default runs OpenWRT standard, so even if RedBoot couldn't boot from disk, we could still use the flash as SecondStageBootLoader. In addition to a rescue system, of course. With 16MB of Flash, there's plenty of room to build a very sophisticated SSBL.

We would also have to work out an enclosure which would hold the board and the disk. The enclosure from netgate (about 50 USD) looks promising, and there might be enough space to mount a disk as well. Unlike the WL-700gE, an external AC-DC converter (about 25 USD) will be required.

Thus, the biggest downside is price after adding all the required components. In very rough numbers, the first development boxes could run well over 400 USD:

  • $134 board, enclosure, power supply kit from netgate
  • $192 SR71-A, pigtails, antennae kit from netgate
  • $055 SATA card from nextwarehouse
  • $045 Western Digital 250 GB from Amazon
  • $010 SATA cable and diskdrive power adaptor
    $432 plus shipping total

By going cheap on the Wifi, the cost could come down to as little as 300 USD, but it's unlikely to get as low as the 250 USD price-point of the WL-700gE. However, by also going with an SD card instead of a hard disk, it might be possible to get under the 250 USD price point. So, there will be a somewhat budget-conscious option, but even then, it's still pretty pricey.

Freecom Data Tank GateWay WLAN

may be EndOfLife already.

This guy looks nearly perfect, but is way out of budget. The older (end of life) version was smaller and reasonably priced, but for the new "Data Tank" model, the 1TB version is $575 and the 2TB version is $759. Ouch.

  • 400MHz Arm9
  • RAM???
  • eth0 gigabit
  • eth1 (4 ports) gigabit
  • 802.11G (no N, sorry)
  • 3.5” S-ATA (1TB (2 x 500GB), 2TB (2 x 1TB))
  • 2x USB-2
  • is there a serial console?
  • is there jtag?
  • can it boot from hard disk?

Some x86 solutions

Teak 3018-742

The AR infotek Teak 3018 may have what we need
  • AMD Geode LX-800
    • x86-based sadly
  • 128MB-512MB non-ECC RAM
  • a 3.5"/2.5" IDE drive slot
  • serial console port
  • Atheros mini PCI wireless
  • seems to have 4 separate LAN ports, rather than a switch
  • USB ports and Compact Flash support
  • Pricing is a bit too high. If we can't assemble the whole thing for about $300, we have a severely limited audience.
    • Teak 3018 128 MB USD 290
    • Teak 3018 512 MB USD 330
  • netbooting?

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10052

PC Engines alix2d3

The alix3d2 may be a good choice for x86 solutions, too.

  • CPU: 500 MHz AMD Geode LX800
    • x86-based sadly
  • DRAM: 256 MB DDR DRAM
  • I/O: DB9 serial port, dual USB port
  • Storage: CompactFlash socket, 44 pin IDE header
  • Connectivity: 3 Ethernet channels (Via VT6105M 10/100)
  • Expansion: 1 miniPCI slot, LPC bus
  • Power: DC jack or passive POE, min. 7V to max. 20V
  • Three front panel LEDs, pushbutton
  • Board size: 6 x 6" (152.4 x 152.4 mm) - same as WRAP.1E
  • Firmware: tinyBIOS

And pricing seems not so bad:

Qty     Description                        Price        Total       HTS code   Origin  Weight
1       ALIX.2D3 system board              USD 121.00   USD 121.00  8471.5000  TW        210g
1       Enclosure 3 LAN, alu, USB          USD   9.00   USD   9.00  8517.7000  CN        215g
1       Antenna reverse SMA dual band      USD   2.75   USD   2.75  8517.7000  TW         28g
1       Cable I-PEX -> N female 6 GHz      USD   3.80   USD   3.80  8517.7000  TW         38g
1       Wistron DCMA81 miniPCI card        USD  24.00   USD  24.00  8517.7000  TW          8g
        Shipping + handling                             USD  34.40
        Total                                           USD 194.95                       499g

Initially, unanswered questions are:

  1. Do those parts even all work together?
  2. Is there room to mount a laptop hard disk /inside/ that case?
    1. If not, how hard is getting a bigger case?
  3. TinyBIOS? No netbooting? Is that a hard-stop if it boots from disk by default?

PCEngines has a number of distributors

ADI Boards

ADI ENGINEERING SBC-250
  • intel x86 533MHZ
  • 64MB
  • two ethernet
  • two MiniPCI
    • wifi & disk would have to be via MiniPCI
    • not clear what enclosures might be good
  • Pricing good: $149.00
Ocracoke Island single board computer
  • Many things about this board looks great including the nearly ideal wired network with eth0, eth1, and four ports of eth2 (perfect for local LAN and failover between two upstream WAN connections) not to mention plenty of headroom in RAM and CPU.
  • However it is x86 based, and the pricing is totally off-the-charts.

More Info Needed

The DIR-685 seems to be a possibility, it has a bay on the left side to host a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive, and is selling for $208.89 - $254.99. However it is not even listed in OpenWRT's Hardware so who knows if it is even a linux box.

  • cpu?
  • Flash?
  • flash?
  • console?
  • linux?
  • 2.5-inch SATA (not included)
  • 802.11b,g, and n (draft 2.0)
  • a WAN port (eth0)
  • four gigabit Ethernet jacks (eth1)
  • 2 USB 2.0 sockets

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