Experience with Raq4

[sota]

I just bought a batch of these boxes for use as firewalls with RaqCop and I want to pass on a couple of tips based on my experience:

1. The flashtool on this site worked fine for the Raqs with Intel flash, but failed on the ones with ST flash. The flashtool-amd-st on www.osoffice.co.uk solved this problem.

2. For ADSL users looking for an all-in-one solution, I use this PCI ADSL card - http://traverse.kd85.com/ - It's a bit expensive, but I prefer it to using a separate modem.

Thanks for a great product.

Pat Rooney

[Davesworld]

You're welcome. I personally have never used an adsl card. Thanks for the tips on flash tools. Anymore, I flash over serial with a Linux box. Sure it's scary at first but you get the opportunity to erase manually which will tell you of bad blocks in the rom and you don't have to care about an existing os.

I do use dsl here so eliminating the modem might be interesting. Did you have to upload anything through the gui? 

[Davesworld]

Never mind the question about firmware. I'm researching this card now and I see that the os only sees the realtek nic, everything else is handled by telnetting into the modem itself.

There is a trick I do here to maintain access to my bridged dsl modem. In the rc.local file. In my case red is on eth3. I never use orange anyway so one of these cards would be the ticket for me and red would be eth2 on a raq. Looks like I would only have to change eth3 to eth2 on the rc.local and that's it.

rc.local config:

#!/bin/sh

ifconfig eth3 add 192.168.1.2
ifconfig eth3:0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add -host 192.168.1.1 gw 192.168.1.2

I managed to find some decent pdf files from Viking in Australia. It looks like if you were using ADSL2 + it would draw 8 watts which we can certainly spare in a raq. Mine with a CF card as the drive and dual port Soekris nic makes it draw about 20 watts if even that. The power supply can handle more than double that amount. From your success I would gather that the pci bus is able to power it ok? This card is advertised to handle dsl speeds up to 24mbs. I'm only using g.dmt at 3mbs right now anyway.

I'm now wondering why I was never interested in these cards before?

[weizen_42]

I'm now wondering why I was never interested in these cards before?

Not sure.
Search for Viking on ipcop-devel might refresh your memory 

Which reminds me to ask Traverse for any plans on doing ADSL(2+) Annex-B ...

[Davesworld]

Ok, I ordered mine from Belgium but the Australian Traverse site has all the documents. I should have it in a week.

As far as Annex B, I do know they have added Annex M capability for some by sending their cards to them but with B, we're talking over ISDN so without asking them it's anyone's guess.

[weizen_42]

AFAIK Annex B is only used in Germany.
Ah well, it is an imperfect world.

Just mailed Traverse. Perhaps they can make a modded card (with gold contacts etc.  ).

[Davesworld]

I found Guy Ellis's thread from a year ago in the devel list. In  addition to the Viking which I have coming to me, the Solos cards sound pretty neat too even though they do actually use an ATM driver, especially if they multilink dsl lines.

[weizen_42]

Just mailed Traverse. Perhaps they can make a modded card (with gold contacts etc.  ).

Already received an answer.  They are working on Annex B solution 

Very excited. Knowing me, I'll buy a card (as soon as it's available) and play with it 

[Davesworld]

I also uncovered an identical Sangoma card called the S519 but it goes for 149 dollars US here and that's before shipping. The Traverse card I bought from the Belgium reseller is being mailed and the entire cost shipped is around 140 us. I wonder how much difference if any there is in the firmware between both cards?

From what I can tell, the Traverse ADSL2+ card also has a web gui?

http://www.sangoma.com/products/hardware_products/data_networking/s519.html

http://wiki.sangoma.com/wanpipe-linux-adsl2-support

Near as I can tell, Sangoma has nothing like the two and four port Traverse cards. Ah well, I only have a single DSL line right now.