SFF Linux Router?

[DoubleZedRed]

I've been looking into building a linux box to use as a dedicated router/DHCP/DNS/etc. machine and I'd like to keep it on a somewhat smaller-lower power machine, would one of the ITX boards with for example the AMD e-350 be sufficient? or are there other alternatives that might be a little slower but are better along the lines of power consumption?

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I've been looking into building a linux box to use as a dedicated router/DHCP/DNS/etc. machine and I'd like to keep it on a somewhat smaller-lower power machine, would one of the ITX boards with for example the AMD e-350 be sufficient? or are there other alternatives that might be a little slower but are better along the lines of power consumption?

Be careful and don't do what I did...

A while back (before the E350 was launched) I picked up a SFF Dell Zino HD to use as a home server and router. At first I thought it had everything I needed, but its lack of any expansion has proved to be a real issue. The Athlon 64 X2 3250e (1.5Ghz, low power version) in it handles all server duties without showing much CPU utilization at all (let alone breaking a sweat), but the built in SATA chipset does not like my storage array under eSATA due to some linux kernel driver issues when it comes to port multiplier, and due to the Dell motherboard not having any expansion slots I am stuck with running my slick fast array over USB2

When I do it again my plan is to go with a MiniATX E350 (or E450 if launched by then). That way I have more expansion options and I could stick a dual port Broadcom NetXtreme PCIe card in it. (I like Broadcom NetXtreme as I ahve heard good things about it elsewhere on this forum, and it is not Intel, as I prefer not giving Intel my money)

The e350 has an OK network chip for casual netbook use, but from what others have said on these forums it's not quite up to server grade use. (mobile/low power chips rarely are)

 

[DoubleZedRed]

cool so just outside of the network capabilities one of the e-350 systems is ample cpu?

what's the power consumption like on those?

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

cool so just outside of the network capabilities one of the e-350 systems is ample cpu?

what's the power consumption like on those?

Not only will it be ample. It will be complete overkill.

Routing, Firewall, file server, etc. type activities require very very low CPU load.

Dedicated routers all use very cheap low end processors.

The very popular Linksys WRT54G, for instance uses a 125Mhz Broadcom MIPS chip with nowhere even CLOSE to the computing power of a modern X86 system.

The E350 - on the other hand - is a modern dual core "out of order" design running at 1.6Ghz. It has very similar performance to a dual core AMD K8 design at 1.5Ghz. It's tough to compare these very different architectures to eachother, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd say the E-350 is probably on the order of 40 times faster than the broadcom MIPS chip above.

This - however - is based on an absolutely bogus number. So bogus - infact- that it's named after being bogus (BogoMips ) it's a measure that the linux kernel uses to very very roughly guess at how fast a machine its running on.

It has an integrated GPU (which you won't really be using for anything but text mode during install of a linux server OS).

Between the dual core CPU and the GPU the TDP is 18W for a fully built system. I would imagine that when not using the GPU (like in a linux server) the usage will be even lower, but I have nothing to back that up, as I don't know how the GPU behaves when a kernel module is not installed. (maybe it enters a low power state, maybe not)

I have seen tests that show below 30W utilization at the wall, but in order to obtain this kind of low power use you need to use a specialty low watt PSU, as a typical desktop unit is not going to be very efficient at those low power levels.

For my build (when I eventually get around to doing it) I plan on using one of these Pico PSU DC-DC ATX power supplies connected to a low wattage high efficiency 12V power brick like one of these..

The 60W unit is probably a little overkill unless you are planning on putting in a lot of drives, but unfortunately the next one down is 24W which probably is cutting it way too close.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Actually, if you want further details, you might ask JF-AMD on these forums.

He is a marketing director at AMD (server side) and I've read (on another forum) that he uses an E-350 system as a home storage server (though I believe he runs windows home server, not Linux but he should still have some valuable insight)

 

[JF-AMD]

I put a blog up about this:

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2011/07/18/the-home-front/

I really like the E-350. The old server was an HP MediaSmart 475 server, and I found that the E350 was way better than the sempron in the 475.

As I recall, the HP was ~65W and the E-350 system was ~30W in idle and ~35W under load.

One thing I did find later was that the Realtek 8111 NIC was flaky and I would lose connectivity after a few days. I popped in a $15 Rosewell NIC from Newegg, it uses a Realtek 8169 chipset and it has been rock solid since then.

I only have a single 2TB drive in the box and it is a green drive, I was most focused on the power consumption and low noise. The console under the E-350 is far snappier and remote console connections into the system is a lot quicker.


I did load WHS 2011 on the system as well, but ran out of time in getting it set up and running and bailed back to WHS v1 because I was traveling too much this year. I didn't want to have to deal with issues while I was remote.

Over the christmas holidays I plan to take on WHS 2011 again when I have a week off of work and all of my travel is done for the year.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I put a blog up about this:

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2011/07/18/the-home-front/

I really like the E-350. The old server was an HP MediaSmart 475 server, and I found that the E350 was way better than the sempron in the 475.

As I recall, the HP was ~65W and the E-350 system was ~30W in idle and ~35W under load.

One thing I did find later was that the Realtek 8111 NIC was flaky and I would lose connectivity after a few days. I popped in a $15 Rosewell NIC from Newegg, it uses a Realtek 8169 chipset and it has been rock solid since then.

I only have a single 2TB drive in the box and it is a green drive, I was most focused on the power consumption and low noise. The console under the E-350 is far snappier and remote console connections into the system is a lot quicker.


I did load WHS 2011 on the system as well, but ran out of time in getting it set up and running and bailed back to WHS v1 because I was traveling too much this year. I didn't want to have to deal with issues while I was remote.

Over the christmas holidays I plan to take on WHS 2011 again when I have a week off of work and all of my travel is done for the year.

Nice! Thank you for chiming in. I am looking forward to this project now (though it may not be until the holidays for me as well).

What type of PSU did you use to achieve those power numbers?

Also, have you ever tried running Linux on the E350? As I mentioned above with my 780G chipset I use with my Athlon 64 X2 3250e, had an unfortunate issue with port multiplier not working on eSATA under linux, and as such I couldn't use my storage array as planned.

Do you know if the Hudson chipsets have this same issue? (I don't know how much of previous chip designs were carried forward, and how much was redone from scratch with Hudson)

It's not a huge deal for me either way (if I need to I'll just buy a PCIe 1x storage controller for eSATA, and they are really cheap) but it would be nice to know in advance, so I can order one up front if I need it.

Also, do you know how the GPU portion of the APU behaves under linux if a kernel driver is not activated? Does it automatically go into some sort of a low power / off mode, or does it need the kernel driver for this?

 

[AirCool]

Exactly what kind of advanced routing function do you need to warrant a PC?

My ethernet router with 4 switch ports cost me $25. Gives me wireless too. And I am sure it uses a lot less power than a PC and I have no problem having it on 24/7.

 

[JF-AMD]

The PSU is whatever is integrated into the thremaltake chassis. I am guessing there is an opportunity to make it even more efficient. A Pico power supply could make the whole thing practically fanless based on how little power is being drawn.

I have played around with linux from time to time but end up back in the windows world because I just get tired of things being too difficult. As soon as someone says "well, there is a way to get that NIC to work, first you need to put an NDIS wrapper on this and create a driver..." I end up bailing. I just want technology to be easy.

After the BD launches this fall I will have a little more time, but if I build up another linux box it will probably be off of an old Opteron 1389 platform or I might build one up on a new chip but I couldn't talk about that just yet.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Exactly what kind of advanced routing function do you need to warrant a PC?

My ethernet router with 4 switch ports cost me $25. Gives me wireless too. And I am sure it uses a lot less power than a PC and I have no problem having it on 24/7.

Does that router get through a full high speed steam server refresh without suddenly behaving as if you have lost your internet connection?

Most dedicated routers (even the good $200 ones) have much too small NAT lookup tables to support heavy use. Even if you find one that gets through a full CS server refresh with the network speed set to your actual connection in the steam prefs, I don't think there are any that can handle two in a short period of time.

When you have 4 PC's a Mac, a Xbox360 and a PS3, two Phones and an Android phone as well as 3 set top boxes that use the network for On Demand and channel info, it's not that difficult to fill the NAT lookup table and wind up with the symptoms of temporary loss of outside internet connection.

A linux box acting as a router won't suffer from this.

It may also be able to compute the routing instructions more quickly.

You are correct though. A dedicated router will use less power than a linux box, but if you were planning on having a linux NAS server humming away idling most of the time anyway, why not put it to use? In face in the case where you were going to have a server anyway, the incremental power use of setting up routing on a linux box is probably smaller than the dedicated router.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I have played around with linux from time to time but end up back in the windows world because I just get tired of things being too difficult. As soon as someone says "well, there is a way to get that NIC to work, first you need to put an NDIS wrapper on this and create a driver..." I end up bailing. I just want technology to be easy.

I know what you mean. It always takes a little longer to wrap your head around a Linux setup. It helps if you plan your hardware purchases so that you make sure you are buying hardware that is natively supported (and you don't need an NDIS wrapper), though this isn't always the case, as many run Linux on spare old hardware.

I find that once set up properly - however - a Linux box is easier to maintain, and more reliable than a windows server.

That and I get a certain amount of satisfaction when I get it set up right.

Just wish I had more time for projects like these!

 

[AirCool]

There is very simple solutions to your problems with open source routers like DD-WRT or Tomato. You just need to throttle the number of connections and adjust the flow timeout as needed.

Most of the applications you mention won't even use a handful of connections. There is plenty of juicy in a router to handle that. Remember, that is what a router designed to do.

I don't know what routing instructions you are talking about. 99.99% of the homes use static route, and only 1 route - out.

Even if you have a Linux PC running 24/7, it is still a bad idea to run NAT on it. It means it is directly facing the internet so any unpatched security hole can be exploited. Espeically that server also hosts your NAS.

And unless your Linux PC also has a good Wi-FI antenna and 4+ ethernet ports. You are going to need an access point and switch anyway. And most PCs can't match the performance of a dirt cheap hardware switch.

Does that router get through a full high speed steam server refresh without suddenly behaving as if you have lost your internet connection?

Most dedicated routers (even the good $200 ones) have much too small NAT lookup tables to support heavy use. Even if you find one that gets through a full CS server refresh with the network speed set to your actual connection in the steam prefs, I don't think there are any that can handle two in a short period of time.

When you have 4 PC's a Mac, a Xbox360 and a PS3, two Phones and an Android phone as well as 3 set top boxes that use the network for On Demand and channel info, it's not that difficult to fill the NAT lookup table and wind up with the symptoms of temporary loss of outside internet connection.

A linux box acting as a router won't suffer from this.

It may also be able to compute the routing instructions more quickly.

You are correct though. A dedicated router will use less power than a linux box, but if you were planning on having a linux NAS server humming away idling most of the time anyway, why not put it to use? In face in the case where you were going to have a server anyway, the incremental power use of setting up routing on a linux box is probably smaller than the dedicated router.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Even if you have a Linux PC running 24/7, it is still a bad idea to run NAT on it. It means it is directly facing the internet so any unpatched security hole can be exploited. Espeically that server also hosts your NAS.

While I see your concern, I am not entirely certain I agree.

I have more faith in a carefully firewalled (and port scanned just to make sure) SELinux box that runs daily updates and patches against a major distributions repository than I do a dedicated router that only very infrequently receives a firmware update. Besides, many routers are really just running embedded Linux kernels with custom web accessible front ends anyway.

I have played with DD-WRT a bit, and while a neat project, I wasn't fully happy with it.

As far as the box serving as a NAS, the difference I feel is academic at best. From all accounts I have heard, it's not that difficult to bypass the security on a consumer router, and once you have access to the LAN, accessing a NAS is fairly trivial.

And unless your Linux PC also has a good Wi-FI antenna and 4+ ethernet ports. You are going to need an access point and switch anyway. And most PCs can't match the performance of a dirt cheap hardware switch.

I have switches and a dedicated access point. I wasn't planning on relying simply on network bridging (which I am not really a huge fan of.).

 

[Particleman]

Actually the power consumption difference isn't as big as you might think if you build your computer with the right components and a Pico PSU.

I measured my old Asus WL500W router using a kill-a-watt and it consumed a consistent 12 watts under normal use. An older D-Link DGL-4300 I had consumed a consisten 8 watts.

I built a Mini-ITX system with a Zotac IONITX-P-E (Intel Core ULV Processor), with a 1TB notebook drive, and Pico PSU. It only consumes 20watts under normal use and 27 watts under load. The only time it uses 27 watts is if I am transcoding in realtime with the uPnP media server.

You can buy or build systems that consume even less power than mine now. A Zotac Zbox AD02 (Fusion E350) consumes only 10 watts idle and 20 watts under load according to Bjorn3d http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=2040&pageID=10468. If you want more processing power, people on SilentPC Review have been able to build Sandy Bridge systems that idle at around 16 watts.

The extra processing power and versatility of a Mini-ITX system are well worth it. I am able to run my router, accesspoint (it has wifi), 24/7 torrent client, file server, and uPnP media server capable of real-time transcoding all off of the same box. Plus the mini-itx computer router is able to handle many more connections with QOS than any commercial box router could.

A lot of commercial box routers offer features like torrent client, media server, file server etc features now a days, but if you ever tried using those features they are slow and bring the router to a crawl. The features exist but are virtually unuseable.

Exactly what kind of advanced routing function do you need to warrant a PC?

My ethernet router with 4 switch ports cost me $25. Gives me wireless too. And I am sure it uses a lot less power than a PC and I have no problem having it on 24/7.

 

[AirCool]

I bet you still need a switch.

 

[InternationalHat]

I have an e350 as a debian Linux media server and I have a network appliance the size of an external cd drive with an and geode processor I think, it runs pfsense.

 

[athlon1.2]

If you want router with the lowest power consumption look for a PC Engines board. I have an ALIX 2D running at one site and with a MiniPCI wireless it consumes IIRC 5 watts (Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT consumes 7 watts... or was it the other way around?) It's exactly want you need for a router: no sound, video, etc. I saw some of the older ones (500mhz vs 800mhz) on eBay the other day for about $120

If you want a "full" PC, have a look at my thread:http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1643698
I reduced the intel atom system's power consumption by about 50% just by swapping the power supply.

Oh and please re-consider using Linux for your router. There are much better alternatives.