27 Jul
2019
27 Jul
'19
9:56 a.m.
Hello all,
I am looking for some recommendations on network routers for harsh environments. By harsh,
I mean hot but not particularly dirty. I know there's a number of people on this list
who use Mikrotik and Ubiquit EdgeRouters for your deployments and I am looking for
thoughts on those product lines, as well as any other similar products. I am looking for a
reasonably low-cost device. The key items I am looking for are:
- Wide operating temperatures. Some of the sites are tower buildings that don't have
A/C and during last week's heatwave the in-room temperature in one of the buildings
was 105F-110F (killed an SRX power supply). None of the rooms will freeze in the winter
but the temp will get quite low.
- RELIABLE -- some of our sites have limited access and frequent power cycles, port
failures, etc. are show stoppers
- IPv6 support for basic routing and switching functions
- Support for BGP and OSPFv3 (routing tables < 100 items)
- VLAN tagging
- IPSec or OpenVPN tunnels as clients
- No firewalling or the ability to pass traffic without firewalls - note I don't mean
a "permit any/any", I mean literally the device operates as a router or traffic
can bypass a firewall-like function.
- The device is a pre-packaged commercial system; I don't want to have to mess around
with custom Linux/BSD installs, etc.
- A device that can operate as both a router and switch would be nice, but not required
As background, our club has a wide-area network around southwest Akron, Ohio-area
stretching out to Rittman, Ohio and southeast to Alliance, Ohio with legs planned in other
directions. This network supports a number of ham repeaters as well as other related
services for the repeaters plus some of the site operations for the tower locations. Most
of the gear is showing its age and we're going to start a wholesale replacement of
most of it later this summer/autumn.
All of the sites are connected with narrow-beam WiFi using point-to-point dishes,
currently N but upgrading to AC AirMAX when we do the hardware refresh. Each site has a
router or switch or both (depending on size and needs). The gear is a mix of Juniper
SSG5s, Juniper SRXs, HP ProCurve switches, and some other random items. As part of the
work, we're going to do a complete renumbering of the networks (which have grown up
ad-hoc over the years), incorporate better use of 44Net space, and overlay IPv6 across the
whole network. The reason for not wanting firewalling between the sites is we've run
into problems with link reliability over UDP (losing a few packets) and also certain
network device behaviors that don't survive multiple hops through stateful firewalls
for a variety of reasons.
Any thoughts in this community? I've been looking at the Mikrotik hEX S and the
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X as example devices. I don't have experience with Mikrotik gear
although I hear it mentioned here a lot.
Thanks
Jason N8EI
27 Jul
27 Jul
1:48 p.m.
Hi,
We use various Mikrotiks both on towers and roof tops for a WISP
environment. The outdoor Powerbox Pro (RB960PGS-PB) is our current
choice. The specs say -40°C to 70°C and it can be powered via POE. It
can also supply POE to Mikrotik and Ubiquiti radios. They aren't super
fast but we routinely see 500 Mbps on speed tests.
If you don't require an outdoor enclosure, there is an indoor version
called Hex Poe (RB960PGS) but I haven't used that model. For non-POE
situations, the hEX S router (RB760iGS) is very fast and rated for the
same temperature range
Roy, AA4RE
On 7/27/2019 6:56 AM, Jason McCormick via 44Net wrote:
Hello all,
I am looking for some recommendations on network routers for harsh environments. By
harsh, I mean hot but not particularly dirty. I know there's a number of people on
this list who use Mikrotik and Ubiquit EdgeRouters for your deployments and I am looking
for thoughts on those product lines, as well as any other similar products. I am looking
for a reasonably low-cost device. The key items I am looking for are:
- Wide operating temperatures. Some of the sites are tower buildings that don't have
A/C and during last week's heatwave the in-room temperature in one of the buildings
was 105F-110F (killed an SRX power supply). None of the rooms will freeze in the winter
but the temp will get quite low.
- RELIABLE -- some of our sites have limited access and frequent power cycles, port
failures, etc. are show stoppers
- IPv6 support for basic routing and switching functions
- Support for BGP and OSPFv3 (routing tables < 100 items)
- VLAN tagging
- IPSec or OpenVPN tunnels as clients
- No firewalling or the ability to pass traffic without firewalls - note I don't mean
a "permit any/any", I mean literally the device operates as a router or traffic
can bypass a firewall-like function.
- The device is a pre-packaged commercial system; I don't want to have to mess around
with custom Linux/BSD installs, etc.
- A device that can operate as both a router and switch would be nice, but not required
As background, our club has a wide-area network around southwest Akron, Ohio-area
stretching out to Rittman, Ohio and southeast to Alliance, Ohio with legs planned in other
directions. This network supports a number of ham repeaters as well as other related
services for the repeaters plus some of the site operations for the tower locations. Most
of the gear is showing its age and we're going to start a wholesale replacement of
most of it later this summer/autumn.
All of the sites are connected with narrow-beam WiFi using point-to-point dishes,
currently N but upgrading to AC AirMAX when we do the hardware refresh. Each site has a
router or switch or both (depending on size and needs). The gear is a mix of Juniper
SSG5s, Juniper SRXs, HP ProCurve switches, and some other random items. As part of the
work, we're going to do a complete renumbering of the networks (which have grown up
ad-hoc over the years), incorporate better use of 44Net space, and overlay IPv6 across the
whole network. The reason for not wanting firewalling between the sites is we've run
into problems with link reliability over UDP (losing a few packets) and also certain
network device behaviors that don't survive multiple hops through stateful firewalls
for a variety of reasons.
Any thoughts in this community? I've been looking at the Mikrotik hEX S and the
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X as example devices. I don't have experience with Mikrotik gear
although I hear it mentioned here a lot.
Thanks
Jason N8EI
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
4:17 p.m.
Back when we had a repeater network a few years ago we settled on Ubiquiti
Edgerouters for our core as well as at all the sites as the gold standard.
If your already using Juniper gear, the underlying os on Ubiquiti is a fork
of Vyatta and is very similar in syntax and operation like JunOS.
It’s not perfect gear, but it’s cheap and reliable enough for what your
after. Our biggest headaches were site related issues such as power surges
and storms, we never had any reliability issues beyond that. I personally
had an SRX100 at my site, had to reboot it more than I would have liked to,
didn’t have as many problems with the Ubiquiti gear.
Good luck, sounds like a fun project.
73
Stephen
K1LNX
On Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 14:50 Roy via 44Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> wrote:
Hi,
We use various Mikrotiks both on towers and roof tops for a WISP
environment. The outdoor Powerbox Pro (RB960PGS-PB) is our current
choice. The specs say -40°C to 70°C and it can be powered via POE. It
can also supply POE to Mikrotik and Ubiquiti radios. They aren't super
fast but we routinely see 500 Mbps on speed tests.
If you don't require an outdoor enclosure, there is an indoor version
called Hex Poe (RB960PGS) but I haven't used that model. For non-POE
situations, the hEX S router (RB760iGS) is very fast and rated for the
same temperature range
Roy, AA4RE
On 7/27/2019 6:56 AM, Jason McCormick via 44Net wrote:
Hello all,
I am looking for some recommendations on network routers for harsh
environments.
By harsh, I mean hot but not particularly dirty. I know
there's a number of people on this list who use Mikrotik and Ubiquit
EdgeRouters for your deployments and I am looking for thoughts on those
product lines, as well as any other similar products. I am looking for a
reasonably low-cost device. The key items I am looking for are:
- Wide operating temperatures. Some of the sites are tower buildings
that
don't have A/C and during last week's heatwave the in-room temperature
in one of the buildings was 105F-110F (killed an SRX power supply). None of
the rooms will freeze in the winter but the temp will get quite low.
- RELIABLE -- some of our sites have limited
access and frequent power
cycles, port failures, etc. are show stoppers
- IPv6 support for basic routing and switching
functions
- Support for BGP and OSPFv3 (routing tables < 100 items)
- VLAN tagging
- IPSec or OpenVPN tunnels as clients
- No firewalling or the ability to pass traffic without firewalls - note
I
don't mean a "permit any/any", I mean literally the device operates as a
router or traffic can bypass a firewall-like function.
- The device is a pre-packaged commercial system;
I don't want to have
to mess around with custom Linux/BSD installs, etc.
- A device that can operate as both a router and
switch would be nice,
but not required
As background, our club has a wide-area network around southwest Akron,
Ohio-area
stretching out to Rittman, Ohio and southeast to Alliance, Ohio
with legs planned in other directions. This network supports a number of
ham repeaters as well as other related services for the repeaters plus some
of the site operations for the tower locations. Most of the gear is showing
its age and we're going to start a wholesale replacement of most of it
later this summer/autumn.
All of the sites are connected with narrow-beam WiFi using
point-to-point dishes,
currently N but upgrading to AC AirMAX when we do
the hardware refresh. Each site has a router or switch or both (depending
on size and needs). The gear is a mix of Juniper SSG5s, Juniper SRXs, HP
ProCurve switches, and some other random items. As part of the work, we're
going to do a complete renumbering of the networks (which have grown up
ad-hoc over the years), incorporate better use of 44Net space, and overlay
IPv6 across the whole network. The reason for not wanting firewalling
between the sites is we've run into problems with link reliability over UDP
(losing a few packets) and also certain network device behaviors that don't
survive multiple hops through stateful firewalls for a variety of reasons.
Any thoughts in this community? I've been looking at the Mikrotik hEX S
and
the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X as example devices. I don't have experience
with Mikrotik gear although I hear it mentioned here a lot.
Thanks
Jason N8EI
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
28 Jul
28 Jul
6:23 a.m.
+1 for the Mikrotik.
I've used a RB450G + RB7xx. The 450G works great, I have a few hundreds
fw rules and 1k+ BGP routes. They both worked very well at 650Mbps with
NAT until a lightning strike.
On 7/28/2019 1:48 AM, Roy via 44Net wrote:
Hi,
We use various Mikrotiks both on towers and roof tops for a WISP
environment. The outdoor Powerbox Pro (RB960PGS-PB) is our current
choice. The specs say -40°C to 70°C and it can be powered via POE.
It can also supply POE to Mikrotik and Ubiquiti radios. They aren't
super fast but we routinely see 500 Mbps on speed tests.
If you don't require an outdoor enclosure, there is an indoor version
called Hex Poe (RB960PGS) but I haven't used that model. For non-POE
situations, the hEX S router (RB760iGS) is very fast and rated for the
same temperature range
Roy, AA4RE
On 7/27/2019 6:56 AM, Jason McCormick via 44Net wrote:
Hello all,
I am looking for some recommendations on network routers for harsh
environments. By harsh, I mean hot but not particularly dirty. I know
there's a number of people on this list who use Mikrotik and Ubiquit
EdgeRouters for your deployments and I am looking for thoughts on
those product lines, as well as any other similar products. I am
looking for a reasonably low-cost device. The key items I am looking
for are:
- Wide operating temperatures. Some of the sites are tower buildings
that don't have A/C and during last week's heatwave the in-room
temperature in one of the buildings was 105F-110F (killed an SRX
power supply). None of the rooms will freeze in the winter but the
temp will get quite low.
- RELIABLE -- some of our sites have limited access and frequent
power cycles, port failures, etc. are show stoppers
- IPv6 support for basic routing and switching functions
- Support for BGP and OSPFv3 (routing tables < 100 items)
- VLAN tagging
- IPSec or OpenVPN tunnels as clients
- No firewalling or the ability to pass traffic without firewalls -
note I don't mean a "permit any/any", I mean literally the device
operates as a router or traffic can bypass a firewall-like function.
- The device is a pre-packaged commercial system; I don't want to
have to mess around with custom Linux/BSD installs, etc.
- A device that can operate as both a router and switch would be
nice, but not required
As background, our club has a wide-area network around southwest
Akron, Ohio-area stretching out to Rittman, Ohio and southeast to
Alliance, Ohio with legs planned in other directions. This network
supports a number of ham repeaters as well as other related services
for the repeaters plus some of the site operations for the tower
locations. Most of the gear is showing its age and we're going to
start a wholesale replacement of most of it later this summer/autumn.
All of the sites are connected with narrow-beam WiFi using
point-to-point dishes, currently N but upgrading to AC AirMAX when we
do the hardware refresh. Each site has a router or switch or both
(depending on size and needs). The gear is a mix of Juniper SSG5s,
Juniper SRXs, HP ProCurve switches, and some other random items. As
part of the work, we're going to do a complete renumbering of the
networks (which have grown up ad-hoc over the years), incorporate
better use of 44Net space, and overlay IPv6 across the whole network.
The reason for not wanting firewalling between the sites is we've run
into problems with link reliability over UDP (losing a few packets)
and also certain network device behaviors that don't survive multiple
hops through stateful firewalls for a variety of reasons.
Any thoughts in this community? I've been looking at the Mikrotik hEX
S and the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X as example devices. I don't have
experience with Mikrotik gear although I hear it mentioned here a lot.
Thanks
Jason N8EI
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
2262
days inactive
2263
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Jason McCormick -
Quan Zhou -
Roy -
Stephen - K1LNX