insideGadgets

Today we’ll be taking a look at a Vyatta/linux based modern router, the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite which is a WAN router with 3x 10/100/1000 configurable network ports and a console port. It has a webpage for management but most of the configuration happens using the console / SSH so not something that home users would use. This particular unit has a “squash fs” problem near the end of the boot (it still boots ok) and also when trying to save the configuration which isn’t the first time it’s happened with these older model EdgeRouters, the errors could be coming from the USB or flash memory.

A few screws later and we’re in and there were no tamper protection seals.

We’ve got a main processor, 4 Gigabits of RAM, 32Mbit of flash, a 4GB USB dongle (split into 142MB FAT / 1.63GB unknown partition, the rest free space) and separate PHYs/transformers for each network port, it must have been more cost efficient to have 3x PHYs that use a processor that had them all built in. The line up of capacitors near the center looks neat and there’s a 7×2 pin header near the bottom left unpopulated. There are 2x Alpha & Omega Z1212AI, 2x uP1713P and 1x EL-EK22 DC-DC converters. PCB date code is 4th week of 2013.

On the bottom side, they’ve left the copper exposed underneath the processor which joins up with the heatsink they have on the bottom and is screwed in place, that’s a nice solution.

1. Cavium Octeon Plus Dual MIPS64 Processor
500MHz dual core, 3 configurable Ethernet I/Os, 66 MHz PCI host or slave, USB 2 support with PHY with packet I/O processing, QoS, TCP acceleration and support for tunneling/encryption such as IPSec, AES, etc. We’ve seen this processor before in the Netgear UTM10, this one seems to be the dual core version. Running with a 12MHz, 50MHz and 125MHz crystal/oscillator
CN5020

2. Samsung 1Gbit DDR2 SDRAM x 4
K4T1G084QF

3. MX 32Mbit Flash Memory
MX29LV320E

4. Winbond 512Kbit Flash Memory
W25X05CL

5. Atheros Gigabit PHY x 3
Running with a 25MHz crystal
AR8035

6. Ti RS-232 Line Driver/Receiver
For the console port
MA3221

7.  Quad Buffer x 2
LVC125A

And that’s all.