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LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

blog.apnic.net

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Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#51

Post by lbeltrame »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #21
voltagex_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I jumped from a Turris Omnia to Unifi kit after the Turris broke during an update (sorry, I need my stuff to work all the time). Funnily enough I miss it, but the decision to use knot as the resolver is very, very strange. The Omnia is based on the Espressobin, which is also worth looking at.

I don't like that cz.nic decided to make something so different than vanilla OpenWRT. I use my Turris Omnia with vanilla OpenWRT and it kinda works. I still have an issue with /dev/urandom failing to return anything that I'm working on. In general I don't understand why so many commercialized open source products end up forking an OSS project and then reinventing the wheel so much. The Turris folks wrote a lot of cod…

> I don't like that cz.nic decided to make something so different than vanilla OpenWRT.

They said it so themselves. When TurrisOS was made (don't forget that it also runs on the older Turris routers), openWRT was stagnating (that was before LEDE came to life) and there were no clear indications on what it would happen.

The version 4 is going to be rebased on the latest OpenWRT, and for MOX a lot of things are being pushed upstream (so I'm being told).

Not affiliated with cz.nic in any way, but I am an Omnia owner.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#52

Post by walrus01 »

simplymath wrote: post #45
walrus01 wrote: post #4

From a WISP point to multipoint radio perspective, pure mesh is a really bad idea (due to half duplex medium and CSMA hell). I admire the internet research work that APNIC does but it looks to me like they're re-inventing the wheel here, versus mature and stable, relatively low cost commercial 5 GHz band point to multipoint radio platforms like the Ubiquiti Rocket5AC gen2 and its associated CPEs, Cambium PMP450/PMP45…

Your half-duplex points literally do not apply to the librerouter. It has 2 separated 5Ghz radios and a separate 2.4 for local access. Before you tell others how to build the network they already run, you might take 10 minutes to find out that they've managed to serve otherwise unconnected individuals and communities in remote parts of Argentina. Sure, this isn't cutting edge tech, but it's cheap, scalable, and easy…

I'm sorry but you're grossly mistaken, the very nature of 802.11n based radios is that an individual (typically 20 or 40 MHz wide) air channel is a half duplex medium. I'm talking about each individual radio in the unit. The multiple clients connected to each AP-functioning radio are sharing a half duplex medium. I'm well aware of the existence of 802.11 (abgn/ac) based radios that have multiple independent air interfaces in them.

You may wish to familiarize yourself with CSMA and listen-before-transmit issues, hidden node problems, etc in any half duplex air medium. I do this for a living.

It's completely disingenuous to say that because some single board computer with multiple minipci slots has multiple 2.4 and 5.8 GHz radios mounted to it, linked to different things over their 802.11n air medium, that it's a "full duplex" radio. A full duplex radio by industry definition is something like a FDD-LTE implementation for PtMP, or a point-to-point FDD radio such as in the licensed 6, 11, 18, 23, 71-86 GHz bands, in which a pair of radios listen and transmit in a high/low pair of totally separate channels, dedicated to traffic each direction.

I'm not telling people how to build their network. I'm sure this equipment is functional and providing service somewhere. I'm trying to prevent people in the year 2018 from chasing down dead ends of 8-year-old technology that will not be the most effective use of their time, effort and money.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#53

Post by subway »

24gttghh wrote: post #2

Cool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0] https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/

I think that's more or less a Qualcomm reference design, and an old one at that. It's a little surprising that they went with a 2013 MIPS based SoC instead of ARM. The PCIe wireless cards are also a bit disappointing - QCA9582, which only does 802.11n. In theory, if the PCIe cards are really socketed, you could swap in a faster wireless card, but I suspect that the SoC wouldn't keep up.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#54

Post by ce4 »

xuande wrote: post #9
ce4 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And funnily its from cznic while the op's router is from apnic.

Actually it's not apnic's, the blog is just writing about it. These are the people working on it: https://librerouter.org/team

Thanks, failed to notice that. Will need to come back later to their site though:

"librerouter.org uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate expired on 19. Dezember 2018, 18:11:42 GMT+1."

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#55

Post by walrus01 »

24gttghh wrote: post #2

Cool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0] https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/

Very broadly, in the same category as these, which is a single board computer with multiple minipci slots into which you can install 802.11n or 802.11ac based radio interface cards. Typically with 50 ohm coaxial u.fl connectors to coax pigtails going to external antennas.

https://mikrotik.com/product/RB435G

https://mikrotik.com/product/RB433AH

https://mikrotik.com/product/RB493G

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#56

Post by walrus01 »

subway wrote: post #53
24gttghh wrote: post #2

Cool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0] https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/

I think that's more or less a Qualcomm reference design, and an old one at that. It's a little surprising that they went with a 2013 MIPS based SoC instead of ARM. The PCIe wireless cards are also a bit disappointing - QCA9582, which only does 802.11n. In theory, if the PCIe cards are really socketed, you could swap in a faster wireless card, but I suspect that the SoC wouldn't keep up.

I am a big believer these days in letting radios be radios - if you want a high capacity, relatively low cost 5.x GHz band PTP link, something like two ubnt AF5XHD radios and a pair of RF Elements Ultrahorn antennas. Put the routing intelligence and anything that requires a good amount of CPU and RAM in something dedicated to that purpose at each site, such as a Mikrotik RB3011 or RB4011 ($199).

https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_rm

Or a home-made hacked together x86-64 system running VyOS or FRR, if you want, which can be assembled for zero dollars in many cases. Or zero dollars plus the cost of a few Intel 1000BaseT NICs.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#57

Post by wtallis »

subway wrote: post #53
24gttghh wrote: post #2

Cool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0] https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/

I think that's more or less a Qualcomm reference design, and an old one at that. It's a little surprising that they went with a 2013 MIPS based SoC instead of ARM. The PCIe wireless cards are also a bit disappointing - QCA9582, which only does 802.11n. In theory, if the PCIe cards are really socketed, you could swap in a faster wireless card, but I suspect that the SoC wouldn't keep up.

They're probably using 802.11n WiFi because all 802.11ac NICs require proprietary firmware, but Qualcomm-Atheros 802.11n hardware doesn't, and can be used just with fully open-source drivers.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#58

Post by subway »

monocasa wrote: post #34
tw04 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it open hardware if they're using an ARM CPU? I don't see a link anywhere to the open source firmware, but I'm admittedly on mobile.

Colloquially, schematics, board layout files, and the ability for the user to replace any firmware that the developer can is the bar for open hardware. Here's their firmware: https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/turris/openwrt

Also of note is the specific SoC used by the Omnia -- Marvell A385. It's a really neat chip that you can fully bring up not only without vendor binary blobs, but even using strictly the mainline versions of u-boot, and linux.

https://git.denx.de/?p=u-boot.git;a=blob;f=configs/turris_om...

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#59

Post by tatoalo »

akerro wrote: post #3

Slightly different purpose, but it's a reminder that Omnia Turris exists: https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ 100% Open hardware, comes with OpenWRT and it is easy to modify https://forum.turris.cz/t/high-performance-configuration-upd... https://forum.turris.cz/t/omnia-on-steroids-project-your-opi...

I love it...is there something similar to this with specifications taken down a notch which would help decrease the price a little bit?

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#60

Post by stamps »

nicoechaniz wrote: post #44
stamps wrote: post #24

PFsense on a PC Engines APU is a good alternative for now if anyone is looking for something today.

The purpose of the LibreRouter is to bring to the hardware side what we have accomplished on the software side with LibreMesh. AlterMundi and other partner organizations help build technologies for "geek free" community networks. General purpose hardware can always be adapted if you have the skills and the money to spend on your project. We work from the global south with global south realities in mind. A LibreRouter…

Oh I didn't mean that as a jab to the work being done.

More so to start a discussion on what can be done in the home today instead of a completely proprietary router.

I will be keeping my eye on this project for WWAN or site to site applications.

Thank you for the good work.

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