Interesting article. Not directly applicable, but the VM approach could be applied to network traffic generation more easily by using IxChariot.
Product-review: Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
- Thread starter leeishom
- Start date
Not for consumers
If you like essentially building a NAT router via command line from the ground up with no documented examples, this may be for you. Otherwise skip it.
I still plan to do a review. But it's going to take me awhile to figure out how to configure this thing so that I can test it.
I received my EdgeRouter Lite and fired it up. This is not a consumer product by any stretch. I haven't had hands-on a Mikrotik, but the EdgeRouter Lite may be a similar animal.
If you like essentially building a NAT router via command line from the ground up with no documented examples, this may be for you. Otherwise skip it.
I still plan to do a review. But it's going to take me awhile to figure out how to configure this thing so that I can test it.
targetnovember
New Around Here
I was able to setup an interface as DHCP from the cable modem, setup NAT between that interface and eth0, setup a DHCP server for eth0, and setup DNS and DNS forwarding all through the GUI. The main slowdowns I experienced was taking a while to realize that rebooting the cable modem was required for it to assign an IP address to a new device and realizing i had to renew the DHCP lease on my computer to test some changes with DNS. The other problems came from the GUI exposing more options than I cared about, mostly in port/protocol options in NAT as well butt the different NAT types, and the labels they used for some options. I knew what I wanted to do, but I had to find the mapping of my terms and understanding to what the GUI was telling me.
The forums mentioned the GUI being a source of work, and that they are considering making common tasks easier and exposing some more functionality that the CLI has. I'm hoping it gets a lot of love quickly. It's not bad, but there is a lot of promise.
Andrew911tt
Occasional Visitor
you guys make me think that this might be over my head
If I'm having to do research to even get this thing configured as a basic NAT router to test it, then I suspect you will be.
Andrew911tt
Occasional Visitor
But its so cheap and powerful, it makes me really want to buy it.
zsero
Occasional Visitor
Don't forget one super important aspect of the command line thingy: once you've set it up and tuned it, you can just share your init script in a simple text file with anyone. This way people can make it much much easier for each other to configure the router for the first time.
What I did with Mikrotik is that once I've configured it I've exported the configuration (just command line commands). I did a reset and I exported that one too. I did a text compare of the two files and saved the important differences. Now I have a text file what I can share with everyone to configure a Mikrotik for the first time (with VPN, port mapping, ssh, basic things, UPnP etc.). If it's similar to EdgeMax then you can just do this text-compare and share the resulting script in your review. This way I actually believe that configuring an EdgeMax or Mikrotik can actually be easier than an over-complicated GUI (like OpenWRT).
zsero
Occasional Visitor
thiggins, never underestimate the "hacking" / DIY aspect of people. Look into what miracles do people from HP N40L and similar products, what they were never supposed to do. Also, like how many millions of uses Raspberry Pi has or OpenWRT-d TL 1043ND-s.
What I'm saying is that think about the user of this router like someone who likes learning / hacking / tinkering products, and setting up this device might provide a similar experience. Great community support can evolve, people might start sharing config scripts, and it won't be as hard as it's for you now.
A consumer can be both someone who sets up an Apple router using an iPad
or someone who refurbishes an old router by reading on forums and installing OpenWRT.
smyrgl
New Around Here
Ummm...
SOHO Edgemax Example
I just finished setting up my EdgeRouter and I definitely agree that the way it deals with NAT is very different than most other routers, but once you figure it out its not difficult and certainly doesn't need to be done from the command line. I managed to setup both NAT, static IPs, VLAN and plenty of firewall and port forwarding rules without touching the command line at all.
I do agree that this is not (yet) a consumer device although EdgeOS certainly seems to have the potential to be. It's pretty impressive how well it handles window management and context without going straight to hell and its ability to asynchronously update the UI means that the monitoring functions are actually quite useful indeed (unlike on virtually any other router out there). It's not just a hardware thing, clearly the interface guys knew what they were doing when they put this together (when was the last time you reviewed a router with a responsive ui?).
Ubiquiti products aren't geared towards home use but they are still pretty interesting. The UniFi and airVision products for example are very relevant towards home use and are priced extremely well and are the only practical home solution for multi-AP network with a single SSID.
I sense that you aren't a big fan of Ubiquiti and it definitely puzzles me why they wouldn't be interested in engaging you with review units (I admit I know virtually nothing about the company) but putting that aside I still think that you of all people would be excited to check them out as they are something different than the sea of consumer routers while being much more accessible (price and otherwise) than the traditional pro market.
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smyrgl
New Around Here
That's not an advantage at all. I'm not a person that's scared of the command line (certainly not EdgeOS which is just Debian underneath) but you don't need CLI scripts in order to manage router configuration as every router under the sun has supported some form of config file for years with the smart ones using human readable XML.
The reason why the command line is still required for a number of advanced functions in EdgeOS is because it's not finished yet. That's fine and all given that it is a very ambitious effort and the features that are in the GUI are very solid but let's not kid ourselves as to why this device is built the way it is.
zsero
Occasional Visitor
I didn't say that you need! What I said is that they _have_ command line support, unlike most consumer routers (and you must be joking, which consumer routers support command line out of the box? I'm not talking about hacking or SSH-ing into secret ports, but something what's supported and can parse all it's configuration into command line files).
What I'm talking about for example is that you can export all configuration from a Mikrotik just as a bunch of command lines. And please don't compare a list of beautiful commands to the ugly mess what XML is. Tell me when can you text-compare two XML files and just remove the un-needed stuff from one of them?
What I'm talking about is a beautiful, clean file, like this (my actual config file for a small default config, has FTP forward, VPN, web forward with non-standard port, etc.)
http://pastebin.com/L12NVGxb
I can always just refine that file and install it on any router I need to. At least this is how it is in Mikrotik.
smyrgl
New Around Here
I never said they did, just that it doesn't matter.
Of course you can, if you couldn't diff an XML file then it wouldn't be much good would it? In fact XML would be a much simpler format since you can tell your parser to only care about the stuff that is relevant to you and can leave out whatever boilerplate configs that aren't relevant to configuring the box.
The reason people use XML/JSON is that it is very easy to parse these formats and map irregular patterns to native objects but it doesn't make much of a difference one way or the other from the perspective of managing config files for routers.
The point is that it really doesn't matter how you manage router config data just so long as you can dump and reload it and all consumer routers I have ever used already have this option so it's not an advantage of the Mikrotik or Ubiquiti gear.
If all the functions are available in the GUI then none of that really matters. I respect that some people might prefer the CLI but these are carefully configured Linux appliances not Ubuntu servers. Most times if you try going in and mucking around with the IPTables configs manually you are only going to seriously screw up your router.
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Not fun
I had found the example config in the Wiki. I got it working without any Firewall rules, just setting up DNS forwarding and NAT masquerade.
Ran a quick IX Chariot test and got 900 Mbps or so, which was expected. This is as close as I'll probably get to 1 Gbps given that I'm not testing with a SmartBits box.
I have been trying to upload the example config referenced above by saving it as a text file and then using 7Zip to tar then gz it. I then use the Admin Config upload and it looks like it uploads ok. But after reboot, the changes are not there.
Has anyone else tried loading a saved and edited config? I have posted this question over in the EdgeMax forum, too.
BTW, the config file reveals and this post confirms that EdgeOS is a fork of vyatta, which is known for high performance routing
I had found the example config in the Wiki. I got it working without any Firewall rules, just setting up DNS forwarding and NAT masquerade.
Ran a quick IX Chariot test and got 900 Mbps or so, which was expected. This is as close as I'll probably get to 1 Gbps given that I'm not testing with a SmartBits box.
I have been trying to upload the example config referenced above by saving it as a text file and then using 7Zip to tar then gz it. I then use the Admin Config upload and it looks like it uploads ok. But after reboot, the changes are not there.
Has anyone else tried loading a saved and edited config? I have posted this question over in the EdgeMax forum, too.
BTW, the config file reveals and this post confirms that EdgeOS is a fork of vyatta, which is known for high performance routing
smyrgl
New Around Here
Yeah, it's a pretty direct MIPS port as I understand it as they focused on two major new things: the GUI and the hardware acceleration that gives it those crazy benchmark numbers. I doubt for what Ubiquiti is aiming for that they will need to break compatibility with most of Vyatta as there's a lot of advantages to inheriting their CLI commands and being able to easily port over extensions from that ecosphere.
I haven't tried actually exporting and reloading a config myself, I just noticed that the option was there.
I haven't tried actually exporting and reloading a config myself, I just noticed that the option was there.
I sincerely appreciate the time and the wide-spread efforts You have invested!
Andrew911tt
Occasional Visitor
I whole heartily agree
zsero
Occasional Visitor
Wow, new leader!
http://i.imgur.com/cbM6AWZ.png
thiggins, thanks for this, it's super! I really like the review. Some time in the future it might be nice to compare it with the entry level Mikrotik gigabit one, the RB750GL. It's only $59, and you _can_ access all functions on the web UI, although it can be complicated sometimes to find your way around. Also, it works out of the box with a default config (NAS, DHCP, DNS etc. set up)., so you could in theory just plug it in a cable modem and use it without even opening the web UI.
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YeOldeStonecat
Very Senior Member
Looking forward to getting some in for testing. Hopefully it'll prove to be a good stable unit. We've been enjoying the Ubiquiti Unifi APs for our clients.
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