I have the system, wifi-qcom-ac2, and container packages installed.
I’m using the beta version because it allows adding a ‘swap‘ file without needing the rose-storage package.
I’ve done the following to try minimize disk usage:
Disabled graphing saving to disk
Lowered DNS cache to 64KB (minimum allowed)
Disabled DHCP leases from storing to disk
Point container layer dir & tmp dir, as well as all container dirs & mount dirs to USB storage.
Scheduled run of /console/clear-historycommand, every 5 minutes.
By doing this, I’m able to get a fully functional hap ac2 with wifi6 drivers and just enough container support for my needs, with barely just enough (roughly 100-120 KiB) space left over to make any subtle config changes and allow the system to run stable. At least that’s what I thought.
The problem is, even if I just leave this working configuration untouched / as-is, without provoking anything, it will somehow find a way to run out of disk space, at a seemingly random moment. I will be watching the resource usage, and it will randomly start losing space (as if something running in the background decides to claim many kb). And the problem is, there are no files to delete to reclaim this space. We can get it back to about 160-180 KB with netinstall. but from that moment its all downhill, and once it reaches 16KB used, there’s no turning back.
So my question is: What is using this last bit of free space? Is there nothing that Mikrotik can to do prevent those last few KB from being dynamically consumed, so that we can enjoy pushing our hap ac2 to the limit with container AND wifi-qcom and be fine with around 100KB of free space left over, as long as the system doesn’t go and screw this up by eating those last KB unexplained?
Is there any service here that I have missed or something, that is eating these last few KB, that could be disabled? Surely there is a solution to this? Mikrotik? We know you are already doing everything in your power to support 16MB - but what about this issue of the system eating the last few kb unexplained? And what can we do besides netinstall to recover from this? It’s destroying our flash chips (and valueable time) to netinstall each time, FFS
AC2 + wifi-qcom-ac = only suitable as bare access point. Nothing else.
Besides, you claim netinstall is destroying flash chips ? Let's be serious ...
What do you think clearing history every 5 minutes does ? You don't netinstall every 5 minutes, do you ?
So your script is a lot worse.
Choose.
Use AC2 without wifi and have fun with your containers.
Or use AC2 as access point with legacy wireless, you should have some more space left then.
Or only use AC2 as access point, you may choose which wifi technology (wireless or wifi-qcom-ac).
But not and and and ... that will not fly for that device. You need to accept its limitations.
No, the problem is exclusively that your device is not designed with enough memory to use the latest version of RouterOS v7,
if not a simple access point,
and in the future with subsequent versions it will only get worse,
because in the MikroTik "control room", you who bought an "ac" product with 16MB for v6, don't care at all.
Another potential issue with hAP ac2 running wifi-qcom-ac and containers: RAM. wifi-qcom-ac was tuned also for lower RAM consumption, initial wifiwave2 required 256MB and AFAIK "full" wifi-qcom still does. hAP ac2 nominally comes with 128MB RAM (there were some early batches with 256MB RAM) and there were few reports about hAP ac2 running out of memory. Running containers will consume additional RAM, hence chances of running out of RAM get higher.
You can't run wifi-qcom-ac together with container on only 128mb ram. You will run into kernel panic reboots (or oom error)- guaranteed. But I just found what you mean, 7.21beta2 introduces this:
*) disk - allow to have type=file devices without rose-storage (needed for file based swap);
Hm, this could work. For some smaller containers and a rather small swap file.
16mb flash devices have a ram disk by default. ROS should not write any temporary files to flash. And if graphing persistence, lease persistence, etc. turned off - there should be nothing writing in an ideal world. ROS could utilize some part of the RAM for temporary files, even for nand devices this would be great.
It works. It’s slow. It’s a mission to set up. But it works. Until the 100kb of free space mysteriously gets used up somewhere.
I would have been fine to use the hap ac2 as a regular AP, if the AX2 had a USB port……
This is for a mobile rig where I want a low footprint routeros setup that also has very basic linux functionality. I already have rb5009 for home.
I may just have to forfeit container support and go with a raspberry pi zerow on the USB port… which for me as a mikrotik enthusiast, would be a disappointing way to concede defeat with this project.