Helping with ARM support + recommended ARM hardware

[minimike]

Hi

I've read that support about ARM will come in this summer. Thats something what I think is very interesting. Are they some recommendations about hardware available? I would like to buy a device for testing and share the results.

cheers Darko

[franco]

Hi Darko,

The plan is to get things running for a Raspberry Pi 1 Model B, which kind of outlines the lowest possible requirements. The experiment could fail for various reasons and/or time limitations, but there will be a test build as a proof of concept. Everything else will need to be assessed when we've reached that point and gotten a little feedback from users.


Cheers,
Franco

[interfaSys]

Hi

I've read that support about ARM will come in this summer. Thats something what I think is very interesting. Are they some recommendations about hardware available? I would like to buy a device for testing and share the results.

cheers Darko

Projects like Turris Omnia are interesting even if x86 hardware brings better value for the money. Without support for netmap in the network driver, you will also burn a lot of CPU cycles running Suricata in IPS mode.

[minimike]

Hey guys what you are thinking about a banana pi? The BPi-R1 looks very nice. Only two relevant things are not perfect. I've readed about the network-chip that it's a little bit slow. And the case is transparent and fits not the WAF of your wife But Hardware for 100,- € with 2 GB memory and you could attach an SSD...

[Σουπεργιούζερ]

Hello minimike!

Hey guys what you are thinking about a banana pi? The BPi-R1 looks very nice.

When I had first spotted the BPI-R1 I was enthusiastic about it since it seemed like the perfect solution for a firewall with its 5 NICs + WLAN. Unfortunately then I learned that it is not 6 physical interfaces but only a WLAN chip and a switch chip with 5 ports attached, check e.g. http://forum.lemaker.org/thread-12942-1-1.html. So it seems that someone could only create network zones by VLAN tagging which for security reasons I do consider to be inadequate, isn't it?

If that is true there seems not to be any significant advantage of the BPI-R1 over a Raspberry 1b, other than having e.g. SATA and a 5 port switch for a network zone, and of course more CPU power, etc...

Specs & images: http://www.banana-pi.com/eacp_view.asp?id=64

Regards

[Σουπεργιούζερ]

In any case, when it comes to chose a SoC-device to support, I strongly recommend to study the list of flaws that the FSF outlines here https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers and make a coice with as few flaws as possible.
The Raspberry Pi is not a good choice IMHO, as long as they stick to their blob strategy.

Here is a list with information about OS support and if BLOBs are needed or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_single-board_computers#Operating_system

The topic on:

• Libreplanet: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Hardware/Single_Board_Computers
• reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2fujj7/single_board_computer_sbc_which_doesnt_require/

Cheers

[faisalusuf]

Cubieboard is an opensource hardware and it supports FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Android. This can be a best choice for embedded deployment.

Thanks
Faisal.

[chemlud]

Hi!

a small (wifi, 3g/4g) router for traveling based on raspi 3 would be a cool project, is the ARM version of OPNsense anywhere near or will it come later? :-)

kind regards

chemlud

[franco]

Hi chemlud,

A proof of concept is still pending, although I'm worried about

(a) computing power and other bottlenecks like RAM for small / old devices, also important for timely builds
(b) portability of builds across different hardware, we can't really handle more than one or two additional images with ease

The proof of concept is for Raspberry Pi 1 Model B, which will bring:

1. Updates to the tools.git to build an arm version without much effort other than setting up a build system and running the scripts
2. A few test builds for the above platform to try out.

Anything beyond that will have to be re-evaluated afterwards.


Cheers,
Franco

[fraenki]

The proof of concept is for Raspberry Pi 1 Model B, which will bring:

Does an GH issue already exist to keep track of the open tasks and/or problems/solutions? I couldn't find one. It could help to point out what was already done and needs to be done.

I'd like to help testing and maybe more if it proves to be useful.


Regards
- Frank

[franco]

We should create one in tools, that would be no problem.

Due to workload in my day job, however, I'm not going to be able to work on ARM for the moment. The roadmap has been adjusted accordingly.

If someone is interested in picking this up, there's an RPI that was sponsored that belongs to this task.

https://github.com/opnsense/tools/issues/33

[chemlud]

... I would sponsor a Raspi 3 (bare metal :-) ), if someone starts working on that.

With the built-in wifi and the better CPU I guess the hardware is more appropriate the the reeeeeaaalllllyyyy slow Raspi 1.

 

[franco]

Chemlud, that would be very kind, thanks. I'll sticky this thread for more visibility.

[chemlud]

Update:

Found this here:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=149398

...and downloaded the FreeBSD 10.3 for Raspi (ARM 6 support):

https://www.freebsd.org/where.html

...burning SD card, Raspi 1B boots fine to boot prompt, whle Raspi 2B+/3B will only show rainbow screen, i.e. detect no bootable OS...

So apparently the Raspi 1 is the only bet at this time. Can anybody guide my how to get somefink like a nano image of opnsense with this special BSD for ARM? Or no way? :-D

[franco]

Some attempts have been made to make the tools.git more cross-compile friendly. I have successfully built a RPI base and kernel set, just a little more work needs to be done to bring in a viable RaspberryPi kernel config.

Work that is still needed:

(a) The ports cross-build is probably something that can only be solved with QEMU or a native system.

(b) Prune ports.conf, help build failing but required ports.

(c) Modify core.git to cope with ports that are not available on arm.

(d) Proper nano image builds for the RPI with their magic boot blobs.

It looks like the PRI images will be compatible with model 1 and 2:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Raspberry%20Pi

Some more docs on cross-building:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/crossbuild
https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Raspberry%20Pi%202%20image
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=90613
http://allskyee.blogspot.ch/2014/02/freebsd-10-ports-cross-compile-amd64-to.html
http://kernelnomicon.org/?p=229
https://www.dvatp.com/tech/armv6_freebsd_poudriere
https://wiki.freebsd.org/QemuUserModeHowTo


Cheers,
Franco