New RouterOS Features and new RouterBOARDs

Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:56 am

So, we have some very interesting news to announce. Let's start with the software:

1. The new Webbox is included with latest Beta. We have completely re-made it's structure and now it doesn't use frames, works better, has some nice improvements and you can test it by simply opening the router's webpage. tell me what you think about it.

Also - it works with small-screen devices like Palm or PocketPC. It will detect your browser (Blazer or IE for PocketPC) and load a smaller version of the interface. Very convenient for the man on the tower (or any other place where there are no big screens or keyboards available).

2. The new WinBox is also here. It has a lot of additions and comes with a polished interface.

Enter the Snooper/Sniffer! This new exciting feature will show a lot of information about the wireless area around your router. Read more here: http://www.mikrotik.com/1press.html

3. New RouterBOARD products! Finally, what lots of you asked - RB500 series have arrived and are all diplayed on http://www.routerboard.com with prices and specs. Post your thoughts!

You are welcome to comment here about these new features/products, as always - suggestions are welcome.

msolis · Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:42 pm

Excellent notices. When your have outdoor case for the new routerboard?

medube · Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:55 am

If I may add, it would be nice to see active hotspot and PPPoE clients in webbox.

Medube

stephenpatrick · Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:20 am

I notice it's a MIPS 4 processor:

Unless I'm being dumb, that's not an x86 family device
Does that mean RouterOS has been re-compiled for this CPU?

And does that mean Mikrotik will be maintaining dual software releases cross-compiled for each?

Also some benchmarking against x86 platforms would be really helpful for basic tasks - wireless with nstreme, routing, etc

Regards

wildbill442 · Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:31 am

Looks sweet can't wait to start using these with 2.9!!!

when can i buy them?!

Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:36 am

I notice it's a MIPS 4 processor:

Unless I'm being dumb, that's not an x86 family device
Does that mean RouterOS has been re-compiled for this CPU?

yes, it is a mips processor and it is faster than the x86 in many cases. RouterOS 2.9 works on this RouterBOARD 500 and on regular x86 systems and will not be made in different versions. But - it will only work on this RB500 and not on other mips systems (yet).

Looks sweet can't wait to start using these with 2.9!!!
when can i buy them?!

when? well ... now?

they are available, write to sales for a quote.

wildbill442 · Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:46 am

That's great, but is there a stable version of RouterOS available yet that will run on the MIPS processor?

by stable I mean public release

Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:47 am

latest beta 15 is the most stabile version that works with these routerboards. note that only 2.9 will work with them. as this is only a beta and we are ready to ship these devices already, we have some interesting offers for this - write to sales for more info.

wildbill442 · Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:55 am

latest beta 15 is the most stabile version that works with these routerboards. note that only 2.9 will work with them. as this is only a beta and we are ready to ship these devices already, we have some interesting offers for this - write to sales for more info.

you have mail!

stephenpatrick · Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:06 am

Thanks Normis,

Sounds like I need to read up on the CPU families a bit more ...
Does that mean 2.9 will run on other MIPS32 4kc HW platforms also, or did you do something special on your RB500?

Regards

Stephen

Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:10 am

Does that mean 2.9 will run on other MIPS32 4kc HW platforms also

look a few posts above, i wrote this:

But - it will only work on this RB500 and not on other mips systems

so, and as for this question -

or did you do something special on your RB500?

you have to recompile the kernel if for every mips system. we can't make like a few tens of routeros versions. we have one that works on x86 and on RB500

stephenpatrick · Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:35 am

Normis,

Now all is clear - thanks very much - and sorry for missing some of the info in the above post.
Quite right we should all encourage you to **minimize** the number of CPU platforms you have to support otherwise releases/features/bugs will get worse not better ...
Anyone who is interested in reading about the MIPs CPU, I did some quick looking up:
http://www1.idt.com/pcms/tempDocs/79RC3 ... _69139.pdf
datasheet
http://www1.idt.com/pcms/tempDocs/79RC32434_ds.pdf
Looks like a powerful and capable beast ... and MT's chosen to support up to 400MHz which is the fastest one in the range according to the website.

Regards

Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:42 am

all info about the processor and links to all the datasheets are on this page:
http://www.routerboard.com/rb500.html

markon · Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:08 pm

Finally Looks link We can move away from having to use other platforms when dealing small router boards. We have only been able to use the RouterBoard 200 series in about 10% of our applications.
With the design of this new board, it looks like we can move to around 70%
Hope that the 2.9 version moves out of beta soon, so we can order and uses these new boards. Still a few bugs to go in 2.9, we have a few beta's running and check out each release as they arive.
The Expansion board looks very Good also
One suggestion, is the posibility of building a normal PCI slot. Either a mini pci to pci converter or something would be great.
We use a lot of Cyclades 300 boards on point to point T1/E1 setups. We still have to use an ITX motherboard to do what we want.
Would like to investigate using the new Router Board 500 for more of our systems.
Finally, could you put up some specs and information on the bounding interfaces in 2.9?
Thanks for all the great work

phendry · Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:33 am

What sort of real world wireless throughput can we expect to get through one of these boards?

randyloveless · Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:54 am

When is the production version going to be avialable

rAndy

Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:01 pm

the one that is available now is fully fionctional no limitation final product. only difference is that you don't have the daughterboard connector. write to sales@mikrotik.com to find out more.

KISTech · Fri Apr 15, 2005 2:22 am

:D Finally Looks link We can move away from having to use other platforms when dealing small router boards. We have only been able to use the RouterBoard 200 series in about 10% of our applications.
With the design of this new board, it looks like we can move to around 70%
Hope that the 2.9 version moves out of beta soon, so we can order and uses these new boards. Still a few bugs to go in 2.9, we have a few beta's running and check out each release as they arive.
The Expansion board looks very Good also
One suggestion, is the posibility of building a normal PCI slot. Either a mini pci to pci converter or something would be great.
We use a lot of Cyclades 300 boards on point to point T1/E1 setups. We still have to use an ITX motherboard to do what we want.
Would like to investigate using the new Router Board 500 for more of our systems.

We are having great success with the VIA EPIA M800 motherboard for
small spaces. It has one full size PCI slot that you can put whatever you
need in. We have one that has one of the 4 port ethernet cards, and
another that at one time had one of the 4 port PCI to miniPCI boards in
it. With that and a built in ethernet port we had a great tower router that
had two APs and two backhauls with the ethernet port for management.

We currenlty use one inside a 1U rackmount case with 3 Linksys USB to
Ethernet adapters. It routes all kinds of traffic and I haven't seen it slow
down yet. :-)

Can't say much for outdoor case possibilities though. You'll need some
holes and a small fan for heat ventilation. Any 1U rackmount case is
great for indoor use. There are some small footprint desktop cases for
these too that have a single open slot on the back for the PCI card.
Just search for miniITX.

wwalcher · Fri Apr 15, 2005 6:40 am

We are having great success with the VIA EPIA M800 motherboard for
small spaces. It has one full size PCI slot that you can put whatever you
need in. We have one that has one of the 4 port ethernet cards, and
another that at one time had one of the 4 port PCI to miniPCI boards in
it. With that and a built in ethernet port we had a great tower router that
had two APs and two backhauls with the ethernet port for management.

Have you been able to use Atheros cards in the 4 port PCI to minipci board, or just Prism and Orinoco?

KISTech · Fri Apr 15, 2005 6:56 am

We had some success with the Atheros boards, but not as much
as we would have liked. The antenna connectors were very fragile
so we had to switch to the B connector on one or two. The early A/G
models were underpowered.

Until the overwhelming amped power of new competition came along
and before we got some water in the system somewhere, we were
doing good with the Atheros boards. Still nothing like I saw in 1998
when we had a 10 mile link with two Teletronics Xi-1000s. We managed
a solid 4.5 megabit for an hour speed test on that link. After that the
home wireless market exploded and the airwaves were never the
same again.

BullWeivel · Tue Apr 19, 2005 8:20 am

The new routerboard physical layout design does not appear to be well thought out.

Often folks have radios go out, and often I do not think people will use cf port anyways since it is already built in.

On the new RB they put a radio card on the front and then another on the back.

Try being on a tower and changing that one out. What a pain!

It reminds me of the "w r a p" boards. We no longer buy the w r a p boards with the 1 card on the front/ 1 card on the back because at 300ft it just isn't a bright idea to change it out.

And if I was going to have the rb on the ground then I might as well run a 2ghz CPU setup instead.

So anyways, that is my biggest gripe so far. all radios should be on the front where you can easily get to them.

Another gripe is the spec's should state 266 and that it is overclockable to th 400mhz since it does not natively do it.

jober · Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:58 am

Well thought out is the PRICE! And as for the radio on the back, I know what you mean. I've replaced a rb230 300 feet up a tower, and it's a great big bitch.
BUT, At the price of these units it would be smart to have a spair with the same config, so you can climb up and just change the whole thing, as I do now.
It's just to damn hard to NOT drop all those small parts in the dead of winter, when you can't feel your hands.

markon · Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:35 am

Let me clarify. We will use the 500 series as CPE (Customer Premis Equipment). As for bases which require power. We have tested over 100 VIA Mini ITX boards. The work great until you operate them in a harsh enviorment. At 128 deg F. The VIA North bridge fails almost every time. the 220 and 230 boards all run upto 155 deg F.
The only small foot print board that runs all the way to 165 deg F. is the Inter mini ATX boards. 30 out of 30 have never died for 1 year. The are all running in Death Valley California. The hotest spot in the United States.

KISTech · Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:25 am

Ah, that explains the difference in our experiences. We're up here in
northern Oregon where as long as it's water proof and you can handle
a little ice in the winter, you're all set.

phendry · Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:18 am

The only small foot print board that runs all the way to 165 deg F. is the Inter mini ATX boards. 30 out of 30 have never died for 1 year.

Do you have more details on these boards? Where do you get them and what cpu do they have?

We're up here in northern Oregon where as long as it's water proof and you can handle a little ice in the winter, you're all set.

What do you guys use to counter act the cold?

lastguru · Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:37 am

The only small foot print board that runs all the way to 165 deg F. is the Inter mini ATX boards. 30 out of 30 have never died for 1 year. The are all running in Death Valley California. The hotest spot in the United States.

So RB500 is also crashing in these conditions?

tully · Wed Apr 20, 2005 3:55 pm

The new routerboard physical layout design does not appear to be well thought out.

Often folks have radios go out, and often I do not think people will use cf port anyways since it is already built in.

On the new RB they put a radio card on the front and then another on the back.

The PCB provides some isolation for the radio signals when the cards on opposite sides of the board. So this might not be as easy to work with but can improve the connection quality some.

John

randyloveless · Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:18 pm

gotta a question about the daughter board and the extra mini pci slots

why are there more mini slots if everybody i have heard so far doesnt recommend running more then 2 radios per unit (rb500)

and would 4 radios in one case cause alot of RF between the radios?

Randy

KISTech · Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:51 pm

phendry wrote:

What do you guys use to counter act the cold?

The cold here really isn't that bad. 3 out of 4 years we get a winter
storm that drops the temp down to around 16 F for about a week at
the most. The cold around here is typically 35-45 F during the coldest
part of the winter. Even during those coldest times when it was snowing
and we had ice storms, our APs were still running. Clients using SmartBridge's
outdoor unit were still running too.

Worst case we had was ice buildiup on the antenna on the tower. It
changes the effective shape of the antenna (not to mention all that
water the signal is trying to push through) I was lucky enough to clear
that problem with a well placed rock from a sling shot. Wouldn't recommend
that for others though. We had to repair a crack in the raydome later.

cmit · Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:05 pm

The cold here really isn't that bad. 3 out of 4 years we get a winter storm that drops the temp down to around 16 F for about a week at the most. The cold around here is typically 35-45 F during the coldest part of the winter.

My experience with this topic: Talking mostly about p2p links, where usually the systems themselves are not outdoors, but inside in an unheated/unisolated attic (partly with open windows etc.), up in the church tower, ...
Outdoor temperatures regularly drop down to and below -20 degree C (which is -4 degree F). Our systems are not heated/climated in any way, and do work flawlessly with "indoor" temperatures down to -15 degrees C (5 degree F) and like that . Note though, that those are usually industrial embedded systems which are designed for more harsh environments than a "standard PC mainboard".

Worst case we had was ice buildiup on the antenna on the tower. It
changes the effective shape of the antenna (not to mention all that
water the signal is trying to push through)

Yup, I see that as one of the bigger problems in such environments, too. It's not uncommon to have 2-4 cm thick ice on exposed panel antennas up on the mast. This really makes things get hairy

...

I was lucky enough to clear
that problem with a well placed rock from a sling shot. Wouldn't recommend that for others though. We had to repair a crack in the raydome later.

Would like to see that in action

bjohns · Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:27 am

I was lucky enough to clear
that problem with a well placed rock from a sling shot. Wouldn't recommend
that for others though. We had to repair a crack in the raydome later.

I don't remember reading that in my network administrator's handbook... I suffer from the other extreme of heat issues, throwing rocks doesn't seem to help.

cmit · Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:13 am

Perhaps you should try throwing ice cubes

KISTech · Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:55 pm

Dry ice..

john2 · Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:06 pm

why are there more mini slots if everybody i have heard so far doesnt recommend running more then 2 radios per unit (rb500) and would 4 radios in one case cause alot of RF between the radios?
Randy

I think the two radio idea comes from thinking only about the three non overlapping frequencies in 2.4GHz. You need some 10 or 20MHz of space between the edges of your signal. So for 2.4GHz, only two radios could get close to the maximum speed.

When you add the 5GHz bands, then there is plenty of frequency to have buffers between you radio channels. I have test the RouterBoard 18 with 8 radios and got more than 200Mb/s through the radios. That means more than 25Mb/s for each radio. The max for each radio with standard 802.11 protocols is around 33Mb/s, so this is acceptable.

John

phendry · Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:15 pm

I have test the RouterBoard 18 with 8 radios and got more than 200Mb/s through the radios. That means more than 25Mb/s for each radio.

?? I didn't think the RouterBoard 18 could handle anywhere near this amount of traffic? 200Mb/s seems like a lot of traffic for such a slow processor.

john2 · Sat Apr 23, 2005 2:55 pm

Check the web site http://www.routerboard.com

The Routerboard 18 is an eight port mpci to pci adapter. In was inside Celeron 1-2GHz tower.

John

phendry · Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:00 pm

Doh. Sorry, was thinking of the 220

marvin · Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:49 pm

How many non-overlapping channels are their in say the 5.8ghz range?

KISTech · Sat Apr 23, 2005 7:35 pm

Don't forget that it's sometimes useful to use a 4 channel sceme for
2.4GHz to avoid interference.

Rather than just 1, 6 and 11 we had success establishing links through
heavy interference with 1, 4, 8 and 11. We had 4 2.4Ghz radios running
on the same tower in the configuration for over a year before the home
networking market exploded.

When we first started we did a site survey of the area with a PDA based
unit and PocketWarrior. Once every mile or two we picked up a faint
signal from an Access Point. 1 year later we ran the same site survey
and picked up no less than 20 APs per mile. Most of them at the time
were Linksys.

It would probably overload the PDA if we tried to survey now..

New RouterOS Features and new RouterBOARDs

New RouterOS Features and new RouterBOARDs

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