ZimaBoard 432 as Software Router

[moonshine_yarrow]

I am wondering if anyone has experience using Zimaboards to run OPN sense as a home router. From what I can tell with the hardware specs seem more than capable to handle my application of OPN sense, but the NIC is giving me the slightest hesitation. If you have any experience or advice I welcome it all, I am admittedly new to the world of networking.

https://shop.zimaboard.com/products/zimaboard-single-board-server-for-creators-8g-32gb-linux-windows-openwrt-pfsense-andorid-libreelec-development-board-low-cost-hackable-single-board-server

[SideOfRanch]

I'm using this board and it has been pretty good so far. However I'm here because while on vacation it stopped responding and a simple reboot brought it back to life. I don't know why. The first thing I can see is the onboard memory is full and that might be causing it. Probably need a ssd or something configured differently.

[mxag2ja6]

I used it for a month, it worked for a week and then had to be restarted. I found that the network card was disconnecting (Realtek network card). I tried other drivers but the problem persisted. I have now switched to another solution with Intel NICs.

[moonshine_yarrow]

I have a PCI e network card with a Intel 82575 NIC that I am planning to run the networking through, I am hoping that will preemptively solve the issue.

I used it for a month, it worked for a week and then had to be restarted. I found that the network card was disconnecting (Realtek network card). I tried other drivers but the problem persisted. I have now switched to another solution with Intel NICs.

Did you switch systems entirely, or switch the NIC the networking was running through?

[aidzer0]

Hello, I know its an old thread, but here we go, I have been using a Zimaboard 832 for a little over a year now, I experienced plenty of WAN disconnect issues due to the Realtek card, no issues on LAN though.

So I had an Intel nic with one port laying around (soon to be upgraded to a 2 port) and I decided to test the WAN running off of the intel nic and it has been 0 issues since. I purchased a 2 port intel nic about 10 minutes ago, no reasons other than I want to be 100% sure the opnSense runs smoothly.

Another pain point, which I anticipated when I first deployed opnSense on the board, I used the eMMC storage for opnSense to run on, I would strongly advise against that. Use the SATA ports with an ssd or 2.5" HDD, eMMC is slow and very unreliable long term.

Other than those two nuances, the board is fantastic, it runs beautifully, I have Adguard Home running off the board too, I rarely see the CPU hit 30%, the RAM (8GB on mine) rarely hits 17% at the max. I do not have a ton of custom rules or anything, just Adguard, opnSense with Parental Controls, and a DNS re-write here and there.

There are over 60 devices on the network, 2 vlans, and 5 users with 2 - 3 devices each (at a minimum).

I work from home, I am home 24/7 so stability is most important to me, apart from the WAN disconnects once a day on the Realtek nic, its been a real champ and I love it. 10/10 would recommend with the caveats of getting an intel nic and running opnSense off a HDD/SSD.

I am probably too late on this but this could be used by someone else that is looking for a decently priced micro board that is not well known.

[ng481]

Even older thread now, however....

I have been using a Zimaboard 432 for well over 9 months now without any real issues.  There *IS* a fix for the onboard Realtek nics in the form of the os-realtek-re plugin (system-->firmware-->plugins).  That plugin carries the official drivers from Realtek, meaning you no longer have to rely on the buggy BSD drivers, which should singlehandedly fix the reliability issues.

The other thing to note is that if you want to get full performance out of the NICs (around 940Mbps in my case), you will want to make sure offloading is turned off.  IIRC, that was on the interfaces-->settings page.

Other than that, this thing has been completely solid for me.  Looking back on it, I probably would have splurged a few extra $$ to get the 832 for the extra memory headroom, but I can't say that the 4GB of memory has been an issue for me so far.