Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite Revisited

[System Error Message]

Theres nothing wrong with the ERL, sometimes learning something new can be helpful. A lot of people dont learn basic mechanics for maintaining their own cars, a little research and effort goes a long way to saving money, avoid scams and keep your stuff running well. Its basically the same with various things. The ERL costs a lot less than consumer routers for what it provides, its a good piece of hardware as i even have the ERPRO, however you should remember to treat it as it is which is an embedded debian based linux device. Once you get it into your head that this is just your average linux running on a different CPU that has been optimised for being a router you can understand it better. This is also true for consumer routers but ubiquiti exposes the linux bit for you to work on whereas with consumer routers getting to the linux bit isnt so easy. One use for the edgerouter would be as a web proxy cache or even a torrent client.

Just remember that the ERL is a nice router that doesnt have raw CPU power for performance so in an apples to apples comparison with consumer routers the ERL is a little faster as far as NAT acceleration goes and cheaper though for the price you could say the CPU is about the same speed as a consumer router when it comes to doing NAT, QoS and so on. The ERL comes with more QoS options than a consumer router as and is easier to use as an embedded linux server, just avoid the elitists as they are toxic. Theres no such thing as a device that does everything, always pick the device which suits you best.

 

[mackintire]

We all knew the entire product line was due for an update.

So coming down the pipe is the ER-4 and the ER-6 both which appear to be x2 the pps of the ER-8, and x2 the QOS throughput of a ER-Pro.
I'm assuming the final price will be $280-$350 for these.


The other edgerouter you missed is what was listed in 2015 as the Edgerouter Carrier, now renamed Edgerouter Infinity. That model has 16 cores running at 1.8ghz, (8) 10Gbe SFP+ ports, hot swap power supplies and is expected to be priced $800-$1000



What's else is still missing?

Replacements for the current ER-X, ERL and ER-POE, and ER-PRO.

Speculation:

Not announced but I expect these ,or something similar, will be released in this order:

Replacing ERL and ER-POE I'd expect a 5 "routed port" device with an updated 1.4+ Ghz dual core processor, 1GB RAM, offered in 2 versions, one with POE and one without. $100/$150?

At the mid-high end, ER-PROv2 4 cores 1.8Ghz, 4GB+ RAM, 8 ports + (2) 10Gbe SFP+ ports, possibly with hot swap power supplies.

Replacement for the ER-X , something like a ER-X v2 updated with a slightly better CPU, more on board flash and priced near the same @ $60

 

[System Error Message]

i thought at one point that ubiquiti had abandoned the edgerouter line. Still not the refresh i was hoping for. Mikrotik's CCR can push 80Gb/s of traffic without hardware acceleration but it costs $3000 though you do get 16GB of ram in it and other goodies too, lets see if ubiquiti's 16 core will be able to push 80Gb/s of traffic without hardware acceleration.

 

[Lsi]

I've found some pretty basic bugs in the ERL3, such as the fact that it won't pass the domain suffix when you configure its DHCP server which make it still a half baked choice for small biz use. I've had one for a while to eval, and finally used it at a site as a temporary replacement for a Cisco RV320 (basically the same hardware platform for 2x the MSRP) which had PPTP throughput issues come to light once the site upgraded to a 15Mb up connection.

I vastly prefer the config tree (think of it as the registry editor for your router) to command line work, since the GUI is pretty half baked. I had to revert to the config tree to change the WAN MAC (for a seamless router swap in) and also to manage the users for the PPTP server. Configuring a static IP on the WAN requiring a /30 type entry with address parameters split all over the GUI was a disjointed mess as well.

On the bright side, the ERL3's PPTP server is about 3x the throughput as the RV320 with its current firmware and I've had no stability issues at the site yet. Unfortunately, neither is particularly impressive considering an old RV180 series that is now EOL (and hasn't received any firmware since 2015) easily maxes out the upload rate at around 50% faster than the ERL3.

The RV320 has been in service for years now and never needs rebooting, but Cisco's new RV340 is a couple firmware releases in and still can't authenticate PPTP logins properly from its user database (unless you use unencrypted PAP vs CHAP) so Cisco doesn't deserve a sale there yet despite claiming 100Mb throughput potential for that interface vs the old model.

 

[System Error Message]

I've found some pretty basic bugs in the ERL3, such as the fact that it won't pass the domain suffix when you configure its DHCP server which make it still a half baked choice for small biz use. I've had one for a while to eval, and finally used it at a site as a temporary replacement for a Cisco RV320 (basically the same hardware platform for 2x the MSRP) which had PPTP throughput issues come to light once the site upgraded to a 15Mb up connection.

I vastly prefer the config tree (think of it as the registry editor for your router) to command line work, since the GUI is pretty half baked. I had to revert to the config tree to change the WAN MAC (for a seamless router swap in) and also to manage the users for the PPTP server. Configuring a static IP on the WAN requiring a /30 type entry with address parameters split all over the GUI was a disjointed mess as well.

On the bright side, the ERL3's PPTP server is about 3x the throughput as the RV320 with its current firmware and I've had no stability issues at the site yet. Unfortunately, neither is particularly impressive considering an old RV180 series that is now EOL (and hasn't received any firmware since 2015) easily maxes out the upload rate at around 50% faster than the ERL3.

The RV320 has been in service for years now and never needs rebooting, but Cisco's new RV340 is a couple firmware releases in and still can't authenticate PPTP logins properly from its user database (unless you use unencrypted PAP vs CHAP) so Cisco doesn't deserve a sale there yet despite claiming 100Mb throughput potential for that interface vs the old model.

The ERL uses dual core 500Mhz MIPS that is the exact same SoC in all these vpn routers but the CPU is much faster. This explains the difference in throughput and why i consider VPN routers a piece of junk. Its not only the super slow CPUs in them but also that they tend to come with bugs and issues.

Sure the edgerouters have their bugs, but they're way better than vpn routers in both CPU speed and firmware.

 

[Lsi]

Lots of the cheaper VPN routers use single core Cavium processors vs the dual core one in the RV320 and ERL3, but yes the ERL3 one is a higher clocked one than the RV320 has. Performance is much better for the PPTP portion on the ERL3 regardless of the clock speed as it outclasses that ratio, but configuration is faster and more efficient on the RV320.

The RV320 does have its bugs like the PPTP throughput cap and it has less basic ones like not passing the suffix properly over a VPN tunnel (the previous model did this correctly), but its bugs in my configuration scenarios are not basic functionality (like the domain suffix for the internal network's DHCP) and stability wise I have no complaints.

The lower end Cavium SoC single core based products (Netgear FVS318N, Cisco RV130, etc) definitely have more substantial firmware stability problems, although I posted a detailed analysis of the RV130's stability issues in Cisco's forums and they addressed most of the issues in a firmware update about a month after acknowledging my post so I've been fairly happy with their responsiveness to bug reports.

 

[NUTW0RX]

Gee, 5 years since SNB dabbled at reviewing this product and it's STILL being supported with firmware upgrades for a sub $100 product. Good luck getting upgrades with consumer grade models (cough, asus, cough) at 3-4X the cost.

 

[oso2276]

Make that 6 years. I just got me one of these for my home. Now running firmware v1.10.10, released a few months ago...

Does anyone has feedback on the newer 2.0.x firmware series?

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using Tapatalk

 

[L&LD]

Gee, 5 years since SNB dabbled at reviewing this product and it's STILL being supported with firmware upgrades for a sub $100 product. Good luck getting upgrades with consumer grade models (cough, asus, cough) at 3-4X the cost.

???

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asus-rt-n66u-firmware-version-3-0-0-4-382-51641.60059/#post-525770

Seven years and counting.

 

[coxhaus]

It is good they are still supporting their hardware with new firmware. You should feel safe that it won't be outdated like some of the other vendors if you buy their hardware.

 

[ddaenen1]

Make that 6 years. I just got me one of these for my home. Now running firmware v1.10.10, released a few months ago...

Does anyone has feedback on the newer 2.0.x firmware series?

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using Tapatalk

I had an ERL3 running on 2.0.6 for quite some time. It was running perfectly fine. I changed it for a Mikrotik RB3011 because i wanted a 19" rack format. Nothing to complain about that one either.

 

[oso2276]

I had an ERL3 running on 2.0.6 for quite some time. It was running perfectly fine. I changed it for a Mikrotik RB3011 because i wanted a 19" rack format. Nothing to complain about that one either.

Thanks for your reply. I will go to that version after the festivities [emoji106]
1.10.10 is working just fine, and I still getting familiar with the ERL3.
On the other hand just got running "DNS Adblocking & Blacklisting dnsmasq Configuration Integration Package v1.1.7.8"
Hopefully it will not break after going to 2.0.6

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using Tapatalk

 

[System Error Message]

I had an ERL3 running on 2.0.6 for quite some time. It was running perfectly fine. I changed it for a Mikrotik RB3011 because i wanted a 19" rack format. Nothing to complain about that one either.

you should've gotten the RB40xx series since they are quad core ARM A15s instead instead of the dual cores on the 30xx series, and are priced pretty well.

They now have 8 port with SFP+ and the same with 4 channel MUMIMO Wifi AC plus.

 

[ddaenen1]

you should've gotten the RB40xx series since they are quad core ARM A15s instead instead of the dual cores on the 30xx series, and are priced pretty well.

They now have 8 port with SFP+ and the same with 4 channel MUMIMO Wifi AC plus.

Well, i stumbled on the RB3011 for cheap so i bought it. It is working really well so nothing to complain about.

 

[System Error Message]

Well, i stumbled on the RB3011 for cheap so i bought it. It is working really well so nothing to complain about.

Cool, looks like they must've updated the pricing to reflect the specs.