So, we have some very interesting news to announce. Let’s start with the software:
The new Webbox is included with latest Beta. We have completely re-made it’s structure and now it doesn’t use frames, works better, has some nice improvements and you can test it by simply opening the router’s webpage. tell me what you think about it.
Also - it works with small-screen devices like Palm or PocketPC. It will detect your browser (Blazer or IE for PocketPC) and load a smaller version of the interface. Very convenient for the man on the tower (or any other place where there are no big screens or keyboards available).
The new WinBox is also here. It has a lot of additions and comes with a polished interface.
Enter the Snooper/Sniffer! This new exciting feature will show a lot of information about the wireless area around your router. Read more here: http://www.mikrotik.com/1press.html
New RouterBOARD products! Finally, what lots of you asked - RB500 series have arrived and are all diplayed on http://www.routerboard.com with prices and specs. Post your thoughts!
You are welcome to comment here about these new features/products, as always - suggestions are welcome.
Unless I’m being dumb, that’s not an x86 family device
Does that mean RouterOS has been re-compiled for this CPU?
yes, it is a mips processor and it is faster than the x86 in many cases. RouterOS 2.9 works on this RouterBOARD 500 and on regular x86 systems and will not be made in different versions. But - it will only work on this RB500 and not on other mips systems (yet).
Looks sweet can’t wait to start using these with 2.9!!!
when can i buy them?!
when? well … now? they are available, write to sales for a quote.
latest beta 15 is the most stabile version that works with these routerboards. note that only 2.9 will work with them. as this is only a beta and we are ready to ship these devices already, we have some interesting offers for this - write to sales for more info.
Sounds like I need to read up on the CPU families a bit more …
Does that mean 2.9 will run on other MIPS32 4kc HW platforms also, or did you do something special on your RB500?
Does that mean 2.9 will run on other MIPS32 4kc HW platforms also
look a few posts above, i wrote this:
But - it will only work on this RB500 and not on other mips systems
so, and as for this question -
or did you do something special on your RB500?
you have to recompile the kernel if for every mips system. we can’t make like a few tens of routeros versions. we have one that works on x86 and on RB500
Now all is clear - thanks very much - and sorry for missing some of the info in the above post.
Quite right we should all encourage you to minimize the number of CPU platforms you have to support otherwise releases/features/bugs will get worse not better …
Anyone who is interested in reading about the MIPs CPU, I did some quick looking up: http://www1.idt.com/pcms/tempDocs/79RC32434_PB_69139.pdf
datasheet http://www1.idt.com/pcms/tempDocs/79RC32434_ds.pdf
Looks like a powerful and capable beast … and MT’s chosen to support up to 400MHz which is the fastest one in the range according to the website.
Finally Looks link We can move away from having to use other platforms when dealing small router boards. We have only been able to use the RouterBoard 200 series in about 10% of our applications.
With the design of this new board, it looks like we can move to around 70%
Hope that the 2.9 version moves out of beta soon, so we can order and uses these new boards. Still a few bugs to go in 2.9, we have a few beta’s running and check out each release as they arive.
The Expansion board looks very Good also
One suggestion, is the posibility of building a normal PCI slot. Either a mini pci to pci converter or something would be great.
We use a lot of Cyclades 300 boards on point to point T1/E1 setups. We still have to use an ITX motherboard to do what we want.
Would like to investigate using the new Router Board 500 for more of our systems.
Finally, could you put up some specs and information on the bounding interfaces in 2.9?
Thanks for all the great work
the one that is available now is fully fionctional no limitation final product. only difference is that you don’t have the daughterboard connector. write to sales@mikrotik.com to find out more.
We are having great success with the VIA EPIA M800 motherboard for
small spaces. It has one full size PCI slot that you can put whatever you
need in. We have one that has one of the 4 port ethernet cards, and
another that at one time had one of the 4 port PCI to miniPCI boards in
it. With that and a built in ethernet port we had a great tower router that
had two APs and two backhauls with the ethernet port for management.
We currenlty use one inside a 1U rackmount case with 3 Linksys USB to
Ethernet adapters. It routes all kinds of traffic and I haven’t seen it slow
down yet.
Can’t say much for outdoor case possibilities though. You’ll need some
holes and a small fan for heat ventilation. Any 1U rackmount case is
great for indoor use. There are some small footprint desktop cases for
these too that have a single open slot on the back for the PCI card.
Just search for miniITX.
We had some success with the Atheros boards, but not as much
as we would have liked. The antenna connectors were very fragile
so we had to switch to the B connector on one or two. The early A/G
models were underpowered.
Until the overwhelming amped power of new competition came along
and before we got some water in the system somewhere, we were
doing good with the Atheros boards. Still nothing like I saw in 1998
when we had a 10 mile link with two Teletronics Xi-1000s. We managed
a solid 4.5 megabit for an hour speed test on that link. After that the
home wireless market exploded and the airwaves were never the
same again.
they are available, write to sales for a quote.