Brume With WIFI

briekske · 2019-09-22T01:33:31.363Z

Add a usb-type one on the usb port? I read it is possible, but it has to be compatible and I don’t know which are…

alzhao · 2019-09-22T02:43:54.012Z

The current case is so small and we need space to cool the device. So we do not have room for complicated WiFi hardware. Fortunately we do have a 2.4 WiFi chip there. We need time to make it work properly in software. So the first version just dropped WiFi.

What is your usage of the WiFi? AP or client?

jeffsf · 2019-09-22T16:45:38.087Z

Very few, if any USB wireless adapters are robust for AP use, virtually none for 802.11ac. I would recommend something like a GL-MT300N-V2 or GL-AR300M as an AP in concert with something like the Brume. The GL-AR300M16 would be sufficient, but I personally consider the additional US$8 for 128 MB of NAND worthwhile.

Reportedly poor thermal design is one of the reasons I haven’t bought something like the EspressoBin v7 to try as a device that can manage higher SQM and VPN rates than the MIPS-based units. Adding another couple of watts of thermal load (from wireless chips and their RF chains) in a package the size of the GL-AR750S or Brume is quite and engineering and cost challenge to do with the the quality that GL.iNet upholds.

sfx2000 · 2019-09-23T00:23:48.437Z

jeffsf:

Very few, if any USB wireless adapters are robust for AP use, virtually none for 802.11ac. I would recommend something like a GL-MT300N-V2 or GL-AR300M as an AP in concert with something like the Brume. The GL-AR300M16 would be sufficient, but I personally consider the additional US$8 for 128 MB of NAND worthwhile.

As a USB adapter that is stable enough to work for AP duty…

ALFA Network Inc.

AWUS036NHA

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Stout Linux and OpenWRT support - 802.11n single stream (N150 class), but it’s ath9k and well built.

@alzhao - what is the 2.4GHz NIC on-board?

@jeffsf - espressobin has it’s challenges, but they can be solved - pfSense uses a custom spin of that board for their SG1100 (their spin on the board includes a TPM chip to lock pfSense to the board)

I did a HW/SW startup a couple of years back that was based on the Marvell 3270 as a custom board - with proper thermals, 1.2GHz was easy enough with a proper thermal solution, and I can vouch for the performance on OpenVPN/Wireguard numbers that GL promises for Brume.

alzhao · 2019-09-23T11:17:51.768Z

The WiFi chip is RTL and it works good as client. For AP still testing now.

jeffsf · 2019-09-23T15:16:19.578Z

sfx2000:

802.11n single stream (N150 class), but it’s ath9k

Agreed that some of the “old” Qualcomm Atheros “ath9k” devices can support AP use on 2.4 GHz. I have a few, old Ubiquiti pieces. One needs to be careful as older posts indicating that “Brand X Super USB Dongle” work well have been obsoleted by the manufacturer switching to a different chipset (often Ralink / MediaTek) though retaining the same model number. The “original” model is sometimes available on the used/NOS market, often at relatively high prices due to the demand. Checking my eBay orders, I paid over US$30 for them at the beginning of 2018.

sfx2000 · 2019-09-24T23:08:37.773Z

Should be ok with AP mode - however, this is not the target for Brume I assume - there are more focused WiFi Router AP’s (S1300/B1300) that are better there.

sfx2000 · 2019-09-24T23:16:06.232Z

jeffsf:

Agreed that some of the “old” Qualcomm Atheros “ath9k” devices can support AP use on 2.4 GHz.

Yeah, they’re getting harder to find these days - but the ath9k alfa’s are good, but as noted, buyer beware…

AR9271 USB devices are actually more expensive than the AR150 or USB150 because of supply and demand

sfx2000 · 2019-10-01T04:43:54.894Z

jeffsf:

Reportedly poor thermal design is one of the reasons I haven’t bought something like the EspressoBin v7 to try as a device that can manage higher SQM and VPN rates than the MIPS-based units. Adding another couple of watts of thermal load (from wireless chips and their RF chains) in a package the size of the GL-AR750S or Brume is quite and engineering and cost challenge to do with the the quality that GL.iNet upholds.

I’ve floated the Brume over on the Armbian forums, some interest there - and thermals seem to be a concern, and this is something I can share as well with the EspressoBIN boards first hand.

A naked MV3720 can run into issues with 1GHz - at 800 it’s fairly stable - with a good thermal solution, it’ll run at 1.2GHz all day long.

@alzhao - are you using topaz as a switch, or something else?

Which RTL in play - and have you noticed any PCI-e oddities with the 3700 (they do exist on a timing basis)

alzhao · 2019-10-02T08:55:28.805Z

sfx2000:

you using topaz as a switch, or something else

I am not sure about the switch. Is there anything special. Also not yet used the PCI-e.
I also not sure about the RTL chipset. Engineers all go holiday now.

EspressoBin does not have thermal design at all.

sfx2000 · 2019-10-05T21:40:47.764Z

Not too much special - GlobalScale maps both the WAN and LAN ports to the Topaz, which is one way, but the MV3720 has the two MAC ports on it, it was a curious choice, as even Marvell suggests to use the RGMII for WAN, and the SGMII for a switch to LAN*N ports

(my board used just used the MII’s on the 3720, no switch).

Netgate is using the GlobalScale board - customized for them, onboard eMMC, remove the SD socket, add a TPM chip (Microchip), but otherwise, it’s espressobin…

Here’s Netgates thermal solution - see they do cover the 3720, Topaz, and one of the DDR’s (the other DDR is on the opposite side of the board).

thanks for posting the brume docs - nice to see that the USB-C port is more than just power, it’s also much more - good stuff?

netgate_sg1100436×593 351 KB

Question on the OpenWRT - working with Mainline, or Marvell’s SDK branch?

alzhao · 2019-10-08T04:52:19.105Z

We use RGMII for the gigabit switch, which is for both WAN and LAN.

It comes with OpenWrt 1907.

alzhao · 2019-10-10T03:27:09.346Z

sfx2000:

A naked MV3720 can run into issues with 1GHz - at 800 it’s fairly stable - with a good thermal solution, it’ll run at 1.2GHz all day long.

Is there a sub model of MV3720 you used? Is it free to set at 800MHz, 1GHz or 1.2GHz. The one we have cannot be set at 800MHz or 1.2GHz. Is there any thing I didn’t noticed? The one we are using is working at 1GHz. I think at least it can work at 800MHz. But in the software we only can make it work at 500Mhz.

sfx2000 · 2019-10-10T05:08:11.474Z

If I recall - set the clocks in uboot and the device tree. Watch the scheduler once linux is running to ensure things are within the design bounds.

3720, in my experience, it gives no warning, it trusts what it is told - when it gets hot, usually shows up as memory errors…

sfx2000 · 2019-11-13T06:42:54.949Z

alzhao:

s there a sub model of MV3720 you used? Is it free to set at 800MHz, 1GHz or 1.2GHz. The one we have cannot be set at 800MHz or 1.2GHz. Is there any thing I didn’t noticed? The one we are using is working at 1GHz

Brume on hand is running solid at 1GHz.

conor · 2019-12-16T22:47:43.997Z

can the chip be enabled? would love to be able to use Brume similarly to slate! (My use case is using shared office wifi to create my own wifi network secured by VPN. with slate I could do this in one device. with Brume I need 2 extra wifi routers.)

alzhao · 2019-12-17T01:54:25.159Z

We need some time to finish developing the wifi driver and prepare documents.

marcz · 2019-12-23T22:31:12.049Z

Can the GL-USB150 be used as AP connected to the Brume via USB port?

rp201rp · 2019-12-24T04:05:59.256Z

after pluggin in gl-usb150 to the usb port of the mv-1000 you select eth1 for tethering on the mv1000 admin page. You get wwan nat on your mv1000wan. If your looking for wireless an the lan side I would just get a mangov2 or wait for wifi. this is a gigabit router stepping down to 100mb. I tried getting my TL-WN722N and had problems with getting wpa2 installed. got wep working…not. then I gave up.

marcz · 2019-12-24T06:58:29.077Z

After many tries I got it working as Tethering and AP, on the Brume "kmod-usb-net-rtl8152 " needs to be installed to detect the GL-USB150, to getting it working as Access Point go to Advanced-> LAN → Physical Settings, and tick Ethernet Adapter: “eth1” (lan). I getting about 70 Mbps on my phone, fair enough for my needs.