2 ms·
these modems run a full OS. But why? ... Couldn’t an FPGA or ASIC handle that better? These modems don't just have an OS (Linux in my case) but a kitchen sink
by PhantomGremlin 5y ago
these modems run a full OS. But why? ... Couldn’t an FPGA or ASIC handle that better?
These modems don't just have an OS (Linux in my case) but a kitchen sink of additional software. I have a similar Arris modem, the SB6141. The modem has its own internal web page where Arris acknowledges the licenses for all the software used.
You can get an idea of the complexity by looking at the list of software included. I'm sure there are countless security bugs, hence why this cable modem is on the Internet side of my own firewall.
The table below shows list of Open Source Licenses
and corresponding Software Components
used in this product.
GPLv2:
Busybox 1.4.2
Kernel 2.6.18
Bridge Utils 1.0.4
Ruli 1.19
Syslogkd 1.4
Udhcp 0.9.7
Utelnetd 0.1.2
Uboot 1.2.0
Squashfs 4.57.0
Udev 0.055
Kconfig 1.4
Envutils
Iostat2.2
Exmap 0.9
Mkimage
LGPLv2.1:
7zip
Liboop 1.0
uClibc 0.9.27
Sme
Flex BSD:
Flex 2.5.4
OpenSSL:
OpenSSL 1.0.2p
TI Kerebos 1.1.2
Matt Johnson MIT, TDCAL, Tatu Ylonen, PuTTY MIT, OpenSSH BSD:
Dropbear 0.50
Libtomcrypt 1.0
Libtommath 1.0
Wide Project BSD, Emanual Dreyfus BSD, University of California BSD:
Ipsec Tools 0.6.6
Abraham vd Merwe BSD, Texas Instruments BSD:
Libber 0.4.2
Texas Instruments BSD:
TI NetDK Libs 1.2.0
TI Docsis 1.2.0
Wide BSD, ISC MIT, Texas Instruments BSD, Todd Miller BSD:
TI DHCPv6 1.3
Portions under Jef Poskanzer MIT:
TI Webserver 1.2.0
University of California BSD, Texas Instruments BSD:
TFTP 0.17
Gray Watson MIT, MIT MIT, Textil Computer Design MIT, USC/ISI MIT:
DMalloc 5.5.2
Portions under University of California BSD:
TI Icc 1.1.2