MIPS installing and etherswitch questions

[Milan Obuch]

On Fri, 14 Mar 2014 15:03:41 +0200
"Özkan KIRIK" <ozkan.kirik at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I'm interested with FreeBSD MIPS.
> Which devices can boot FreeBSD from onboard flash?
> Can we use etherswitch ports as network interfaces ?
> 
> I have an Mikrotik RB750UP. I saw that FreeBSD can boot over network.
> Can freebsd be installed to onboard flash?
> 
> Best regards,
>

Hi,

if you want to do some research and development, it helps. Main trouble
here is, if I am not mistaken, the RB750 does not have serial console.
This would be great help. Basically, there is support for booting from
onboard flash, but it depends. Mikrotik devices have RouterBoot for
starting an OS, so if you could but some image containing FreeBSD on
your device, it could work. Problem is exact image construction. To put
prepared image to flash, one can use Mikrotik's NetInstall, if it
accepts an image. I did not test this possibility yet.

I strongly prefer having serial console, which enables me to work with
kernel even if something does not work right. This way I can configure
RouterBoot to load a kernel from network using DHCP/TFTP servers.

Etherswitch can be used as full (depends on chip used) featured vlan
capable switch, so if CPU port is arge1 (as in a RouterStationPro from
Ubiquiti I have), you could make arge1.1, arge1.2 up to defined max
number of vlan groups arge1.n interfaces and configuring the switch the
way you need. It does not yet work for me in every detail, but well
enough for three externally accessible ports.

Mikrotik devices are good as they are, but it is sometimes hard to find
relevant info on them, they are a bit 'closed' in their own world.
Ubiquiti devices are somewhat more 'open', but you can every time try
to find an answer in OpenWrt sources, if you can find working kernel
for your device and can work with Linux sources.

In any case, if you think it is interesting for you, please do some
research and I am sure if you will have any question, someone will help
you.

Regards,
Milan