5 ms·

What people use for hardware now that pcengines' apus are eol?

t-3 3y ago
I was recently looking at some Banana Pi boards, but I'm not sure if any of them other than the R1 will run OpenBSD. HardKernel's ODROID-H3 is tempting, but the cases are not great looking.
miah_ 3y ago
I've been using a NUC! My only "complaint" is that the model I'm using only has 1 built in NIC, had to add another via USB. It works very well.
- louwrentius 3y ago
  You could use VLANs and ditch the extra USB NIC if you want.
  - accrual 3y ago
    I ran such a topology for a while, aka "router on a stick". I had a two-port trunk link to a cheap Cisco small business switch, it worked great. It could also have been easily virtualized with a single virtual NIC, but I don't like virtualizing my router anymore, hah.
unpixer 3y ago
Protectil VP2420 here.
saclark11 3y ago
I'm curious to hear others' answers to this question as well. I've been looking into building my own OpenBSD based home router and so far thinking a Protectli Vault [1] would fit the bill. 1. https://protectli.com https://protectli.com
blue1 3y ago
EOL as in "no longer sold" or "cannot install new openbsd releases on them"?
- 6581 3y ago
  https://www.pcengines.ch/eol.htm https://www.pcengines.ch/eol.htm
- accrual 3y ago
  They're no longer produced but still serve as a perfectly capable home router. Even my previous APU 1 is still a rock solid performer.
  - blue1 3y ago
    What's the situation wrt the install process? I remember having to use a non-official distribution of OpenBSD.
    - accrual 3y ago
      It should be completely possible using only the official install media, then and now. To do this today, download the AMD64 install74.img (like an ISO, but for flash media), write the image to a USB disk, connect to the APU1/2 via serial, plug in the drive and power up the APU, then follow the installation script. Once booted, run fw_update and syspatch to make sure the firmware and system is up-to-date.
cylinder714 3y ago
I don't think OpenBSD supports it, but the Traverse Ten64 has ten gigabit Ethernet ports, eleven antenna mounts, and up to 32GB of ECC RAM: https://www.crowdsupply.com/traverse-technologies/ten64 https://www.crowdsupply.com/traverse-technologies/ten64
pseudostem 3y ago
They state on their webpage that they have bought a lifetime supply of those chips. I wouldn't call them EOL
- brunoqc 3y ago
  As I have none, it is for me.
accrual 3y ago
OpenBSD supports Ubiquiti's octeon processor. I thought it would be neat to run my router on a non-x86 CPU, but I don't have personal experience with these boxes yet. https://www.openbsd.org/octeon.html https://www.openbsd.org/octeon.html

t-3 3y ago

I was recently looking at some Banana Pi boards, but I'm not sure if any of them other than the R1 will run OpenBSD. HardKernel's ODROID-H3 is tempting, but the cases are not great looking.

miah_ 3y ago

I've been using a NUC! My only "complaint" is that the model I'm using only has 1 built in NIC, had to add another via USB. It works very well.

louwrentius 3y ago
You could use VLANs and ditch the extra USB NIC if you want.
- accrual 3y ago
  I ran such a topology for a while, aka "router on a stick". I had a two-port trunk link to a cheap Cisco small business switch, it worked great. It could also have been easily virtualized with a single virtual NIC, but I don't like virtualizing my router anymore, hah.

unpixer 3y ago

Protectil VP2420 here.

saclark11 3y ago

I'm curious to hear others' answers to this question as well. I've been looking into building my own OpenBSD based home router and so far thinking a Protectli Vault [1] would fit the bill. 1. https://protectli.com https://protectli.com

blue1 3y ago

EOL as in "no longer sold" or "cannot install new openbsd releases on them"?

6581 3y ago
https://www.pcengines.ch/eol.htm https://www.pcengines.ch/eol.htm
accrual 3y ago
They're no longer produced but still serve as a perfectly capable home router. Even my previous APU 1 is still a rock solid performer.
- blue1 3y ago
  What's the situation wrt the install process? I remember having to use a non-official distribution of OpenBSD.
  - accrual 3y ago
    It should be completely possible using only the official install media, then and now. To do this today, download the AMD64 install74.img (like an ISO, but for flash media), write the image to a USB disk, connect to the APU1/2 via serial, plug in the drive and power up the APU, then follow the installation script. Once booted, run fw_update and syspatch to make sure the firmware and system is up-to-date.

cylinder714 3y ago

I don't think OpenBSD supports it, but the Traverse Ten64 has ten gigabit Ethernet ports, eleven antenna mounts, and up to 32GB of ECC RAM: https://www.crowdsupply.com/traverse-technologies/ten64 https://www.crowdsupply.com/traverse-technologies/ten64

pseudostem 3y ago

They state on their webpage that they have bought a lifetime supply of those chips. I wouldn't call them EOL

brunoqc 3y ago
As I have none, it is for me.

accrual 3y ago

OpenBSD supports Ubiquiti's octeon processor. I thought it would be neat to run my router on a non-x86 CPU, but I don't have personal experience with these boxes yet. https://www.openbsd.org/octeon.html https://www.openbsd.org/octeon.html