Re: Looking for ARM hardware

[Tobias Nygren <tnn%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 00:06:51 +0100
Johan Ihrén <johani%johani.org@localhost> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On 15 Mar 2016, at 19:30 , John Klos <john%ziaspace.com@localhost> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> >> I'm thinking of replacing my firewall with an ARM machine running
> >> NetBSD (current is fine).
> >> 
> >> I'd like 2 Gigabit ports and a couple of USB ports built-in. I would
> >> prefer one coming with a case.
> > 
> > So far I've deployed around a dozen or so Dockstars and PogoPlugs running NetBSD with USB-ethernet for the second ethernet. Since this solution only gets up to around 50 Mbps, I'm also waiting for suitable hardware to become cheap enough.
> > 
> > I'm about to order one of these:
> > 
> > http://www.banana-pi.org/r1.html
> > 
> > The Banana Pi that I have runs NetBSD very well, so I expect the R1 Router will work well, too.
> 
> I have an R1, but have not tried NetBSD on it. My original plan was to use it as a firewall at home (sounds familiar?). It's presently running Linux, but without using the bridge ports (my Linux-fu is rather limited, and I haven't figured out why the bridge device isn't located).
> 
> But I gave up on the firewall idea after googling a bit about the R1, which is a bit strange. AFAIK all the Ethernet ports are combined into a BCM53125 switch thingy + a real ethernet which is connected to the switch. Hence, while it is possible to split these up via VLANs they are electrically a single bridged infrastructure. So, eg. if the box crashes but power is still on then your outside will effectively be bridged to your inside, which I consider a bit pessimal for a firewall.

I use the BPi M1 with vlan(4) and an external VLAN-capable ethernet
switch. It works quite well and doesn't really matter for performance
since one shouldn't expect these cheap boards to handle the full wire
speed. Mine seems to top out around 200Mbit/s.

-Tobias