Alright, here are some pictures of my new Soekris net4801.
Here’s the adapter. As you can see, it’s the kind that doesn’t take up 50 slots on your power bar.
Soekris net4801 - adapter
Here’s the back of the unit, showing the various connectors. Note that this unit has a USB port.
Soekris net4801 - back
Here’s the front of the unit, showing the status lights. By the way, I read somewhere that you can use the error light for your own purposes. Pretty cool.
Soekris net4801 – front
Here’s a good view of the board.
Soekris net4801 – board
Finally, here’s the 2.5″ hard drive mounting bracket.
Soekris net4801 – hard drive mounting bracket
nice! i’ve been considering some of these units myself… do you mind if i ask where you picked them up? i can’t seem to find a distributor in canada, and i’d like something more consistent than ebay :)
signed, a fellow canuck
I couldn’t find a Canadian distributer either. I bought mine direct from Soekris buy filling out their order form. Unfortunately, the order form is not secure; however, you can print it out and fax it to them (that’s what I did).
The shipping cost is a killer. They ONLY ship to Canada via UPS World Wide Express, which turned out to cost something like US$50. Oh well, it’s a great box and well worth the price.
Got my 4801. I would like to do the following:
- install a 3.5 HDD.
- use it as mailserver(IMAP)/webmail/router/
Question: Do you know if the external IDE 3.5 HDD would do with soekris?
How is Voyage distro working on your box?
>Do you know if the external
>IDE 3.5 HDD would do
> with soekris?
Perhaps. The hard drive connector is 44 pins and is meant for a 2.5″ hard drive. You could probably use a 44-pin-to-40-pin adapter that would allow you to connect a 3.5″ hard drive. However, there is only enough room inside the case for a 2.5″ drive. Putting a 3.5″ on the outside would look ugly and would defeat the purpose of having such a small form factor computer in the first place.
> How is Voyage distro working
> on your box?
It suits my needs. You may also want to check out m0n0wall or some of the other Linux and *BSD distros that can run on the Soekris.
What I want to do with the soekris is to build a imap mail server/webmail/firewall solution into 1 box.
This is the purpose I ask about the 3.5″ HDD – which I am going to attach through a 2.5-3.5 adapter and hook it ouside the box.
Voyage – is this secure/stable? I have never tried it, and may look into this to see if it meets my needs.
Voyage Linux is currently on version 0.3, I believe. We’ve been running it for almost a year. We built a dual-WAN router with our Soekris and we run it off a compact flash card.
As you can probably tell from the version number, the distro still needs a bit of polish. However, it meets our needs.
Voyage Linux is based on Debian (Sarge release, I believe) so it’s probably about as secure and stable as Debian.
If you have experience with Linux and especially Debian, I recommend Voyage Linux. Having said that, I know some people that run m0n0wall on their Soekris and by all accounts, it does a good job. So, you should probably have a look at m0n0wall too.
As for the 3.5″ drive idea of yours, you can certainly get the 44 pin to 40 pin adapter but what about the power connector? Does 2.5″ drive use the same 4 prong connector? And can the power supply power a 3.5″ drive? I don’t know the answer. You’ll have to find out. I recommend you contact Soekris to find out. From my experience, their tech support is pretty good.
Let me know how it goes for you! Cheers.
The HDD bracket is confusing, and I am considering getting the whole package. The bracket shown in the picture mounts how on/in the case, would you share a picture of that too?
Thanks!
The bracket mounts inside the case. We actually haven’t used it to hold a hard drive but we installed it anyway because it makes it easier to slide the case on and off without whacking the motherboard. Trust me on this point! Get the bracket even if you aren’t putting in a drive otherwise you increase your chances of whacking the mobo.
I like the box, we use the soekris NET5501 with a bastardized version of Asterisk. Works like a charm. I had no qualms against paying the higher shipping costs since it works so well.
Was just wondering about the hdd issue. Cant u just use a usb external drive?
I am thinking about buying a net4801 not as a router (wrt54g works great with dd-wrt) but as a file/internet server.
do u think there is enough power in these units to make em into a multimedia server/pvr?
[...] Conning the Mark: Multiwan connections using IPTables, MARK, CONNMARK and iproute2 Author: Jonathan Over the past few months, I have been configuring a replacement multi-wan NAT router/firewall for work. My collegues and I decided to use Voyage Linux (a derivative of Debian Linux for embedded devices) on a Soekris net4801 box. See also the pictures on Joe’s post. [...]