Hardware

First off, thanks for looking 

My company is looking to upgrade to the new Soekris net5501 as soon as it becomes available to the public. Our present two Soekris net4801-50s are serving us admirably, but due to our steady growth and high volume of network traffic we are beginning to outgrow them.

Does the m0n0 development team anticipate offering a net5501 version of m0n0, or should I look instead to the "generic PC" version?

Before the net5501 was announced I had resigned myself to building and deploying some sort of 1U rackmount solution using m0n0 to serve as our firewall/gateway. If m0n0 won't run on the net5501 we could still go this way, but since we've had such great luck with the Soekris platform I'd really prefer to stick with it if possible.

Thank you in advance for whatever information and insight you can provide. And thank you as well for providing a forum for m0n0wall users!


Chris Janvrin
SellMyTimeshareNOW, LLC
Dover, NH USA

Does the m0n0 development team anticipate offering a net5501 version of m0n0, or should I look instead to the "generic PC" version?

I haven't been able to get my hands on a Geode LX based board yet, but with a little luck, the generic-pc images (at least the 1.3b ones) might already work on them. In any case, as soon as I get one (or one of its WRAP counterparts when they're ready), I'll try to get m0n0wall working on it.

I'd prefer having as few different m0n0wall platform versions as possible – for example, the net4801 and wrap images are now almost identical, and could probably be merged in 1.3b (I think the bootloader issue that prevented this from being done with FreeBSD 4.x is now gone). Also, the effectiveness of the optimizations applied to net4801/wrap kernels should probably be re-evaluated, as it's quite likely that the generic-pc image would work just as well for them (just need to make sure that serial console selection etc. works properly).

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply

We intend to purchase two net5501s the instant they become publically available. I will attempt to load the generic PC image, and then wait for word on a hardware specific m0n0 solution.

I would imagine that porting your software into different hardware platforms would be a massive undertaking.

Thank you for all of the work that you do.


Chris Janvrin
SellMyTimeshareNOW, LLC
Dover, NH USA

I am also checking the Soekris site daily for the 5501. The minute it becomes available I will get one and first order of business will be slapping m0n0wall in it! Looks like it can be the ultimate firewall board. I'm very curious to how much throughput m0n0wall can do on it...

Those of you who get one, please report back as soon as you have a chance to try it. Myself and likely many others are curious.

Those of you who get one, please report back as soon as you have a chance to try it. Myself and likely many others are curious.

Absolutely!

Typically we're not early adopters of new hardware. Normally we wait four to six months (or longer) for the dust to settle and the bugs to be worked out before we move to a completely new platform. This time around though we don't have that much time to wait. During periods of peak network traffic our primary net4801-50 is pegged, and our secondary isn't too far behind. Given the top-shelf experiences that we've had with Soekris products and service, I'm not worried about becoming a involuntary beta tester for them.

We've come an awful long way since the bad old days when all my company could afford was a $29 Linksys router


Chris Janvrin
SellMyTimeshareNOW, LLC
Dover, NH USA

Not to hijack this thread, but the WRAP platform's also up for a change.
No more SC1100's, i think ARM or Geode LX800 will be the next CPU to adorn the WRAP boards.
I hope M0n0wall will be compiled to function on these new boards too...

They are taking orders for the net5501 now!

I just placed my order. First thing I will do when it arrives (hopefully sometime in May) is try putting m0n0wall on it. I think this thing could make one kick-ass firewall.

Too anyone interested I got my net5501 and the mon0wall 1.231 generic-pc image is working great on it. I have yet to run a real throughput test. But a test download from a nearby server over WAN to LAN got up to around 3200kB/s (about 25 megabits). I'm hoping the board can do a little more throughput wise. But we will see!

That's great news Eger. Yesterday I e-mailed Soekris to ask if the net5501 was compatible with the lan1641 4-port Ethernet expansion card. They responded within minutes and assured me that the lan1641 worked fine, and it would fit into a standard sized case. This is great news for my company, since the net5501/lan1641 combo gives us eight physical connections.


Chris

mono generic-pc 1.231 running here on the net5501, no glaring issues other than the console changing bitrate partway through boot.

db

Yup, working here on generic-pc 1.231.

Use bitrate 9600.

Should "Use device polling" be checked with the net5501?

Lonnie

Should "Use device polling" be checked with the net5501?

That's not hardware specific. It may improve performance in some circumstances, but a 5501 will probably push 100 Mb wire speed with or without so it probably doesn't matter.

I have a net5501, but it appears the "vr" ethernet driver (both 1.231 and 1.3b4) does not support VLAN 'long frames', so the tagged interfaces MTU is reduced, hence problems.

Does anyone know of a near-term solution?

The details are on the mailing list:
http://m0n0.ch/wall/list/showmsg.php?id=329/56

Lonnie