01 Oct 08 APNIC Box – Linux on a Mikrotik 532a, Part 1 – The Device

I put this device together for fun sometime around the start of 2007. The ideas that spawned this was using OpenWRT on a Linksys WRT54G access point. A surprisingly powerful and full linux distro with all kinds of advanced capabilities running on a Linksys wireless router which I’d previously thought to be a reasonably dumb device with computing power more comparable to a calculator than a PC. The project opened my eyes to embedded devices, and I wondered what device base I should start with. To cut a long story short and for reasons that I can’t even remember anymore I came across the Mikrotik Routerboard 532A and decided that I should start with that.

Conception

APNIC Box Image 1

Here’s a picture of the device from the outside with some labels, view the full image to see them.

1. Status LEDs. Blue at the bottom left shows it’s on, orange at the top right shows that there’s wifi activity.
2. Ethernet (eth0)
3. Standard Serial Console (57600, 8 N 1)
4. Ethernet (eth1)
5. Ethernet (eth2)

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Tags: adsl2+, APNIC, APNIC Box, distro, ethernet, isp, linksys router, Linux, Linux routing, modem, openwrt, picolcd, public IP, redundancy, routerboard 532a, serial console, switch

14 Sep 08 Extending tc and iproute2. Linux routing split access multiple uplinks multiple isps iptables masquerading

It’s been a while since I last posted here, so I thought I’d post a followup article to http://www.adamsinfo.com/bandwith-limiting-with-linux-tc-and-iproute2/ which focused on bandwidth limiting in a datacenter environment using tc and iproute2.

I’ve taken the same script but tweaked IPs and bandwith values into my office. Previously I was on a 24mbit down 2.5mbit up DSL connection courtesy of www.bethere.co.uk The office is only about 800m from the closest exchange which is quite nice – I generally find I get 18+mbit down and 1.5+mbit up. Not only great bandwidth, but latency is also very small and responsiveness is great, especially as a regular [constant] SSH use. Recently, despite having no business justification whatsoever, I ordered the same again for the same office. This one clocks in at about 19mbit up and 1.7mbit down – even better! Some ISPs support line bonding – I dont believe that many in the UK do, and seeing as at the time of writing, bethere were the only ISP to support anywhere close to 24mbit, I wasn’t going to try and find another.
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Tags: Extending tc and iproute2, faster torrent, iproute2, iptables, Linux routing, masquerading, multiple isps, multiple uplinks, Routerboard load balancing, split access, tc, torrent