Edgerouter 4, RB4011, or parts for a rackmountable box running pfsense?

I have an edgerouter lite which broke down. So I need a new router to replace it.

I'm leaning towards the RB4011 but a pfsense box doesn't sound like a bad idea. Problem is, I'm completely clueless about what parts to get with a Rs. 20k budget.

Another option is the Edgerouter 4 but the only distributor willing to get one for me can't guarantee when one will arrive - they said 15th of this month, but that's not a guarantee.

Reason I want rackmount is that this box will be installed in a standard rack when I move to a new place, which is not very far into the future. Both the ER4 and the RB4011 are compatible with rackmount brackets.

W

What type of setup are you running to need such hardware? These are not your typical home routers.

Several computers wired on my LAN and a wireless access point which hosts another ten devices or so. I used the edgerouter lite because it gave me exactly the kind of configurability I needed.

The router I choose now will move with me to a new place sometime near the end of next year, and form the backbone of a multi-storeyed network install, and each room in the building, plus any additional equipment will have their own rules on the network.

Like I know normal consumer routers that have the same feature set, but they're not nearly as configurable as this kind of equipment. Nor are their cpus that powerful.

W

You are right,consumer routers don't have similarly powerful hardware & are never as much configurable as enterprise class routers. You can make a pfsense box with cheap dual core pentium processor which should be powerful enough but size/power consumption will be more(still not much though) compared to a dedicated router.

Where should I look for parts? I want to keep the footprint small and I'm having trouble finding those Asrock and Gigabyte mITX embedded boards online.

After coming back to India I have not had to do any serious PC parts shopping.

W

Buy Online ASRock H310CM-ITX/ac LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel H310 SATA 6Gb/s Mini ITX Intel Motherboard - in India combine with pentium gold g5400.

Or you can go for something like this if you think its hardware is enough *www.amazon.in/Intel-BOXNUC5CPYH-Processor-Integrated-Graphics/dp/B00XPVRR5M/

Correct me if I'm wrong but won't you need two NICs for running pfsense (one for in and other for out)?

W

SaiyanGoku said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but won't you need two NICs for running pfsense (one for in and other for out)?

Missed that,may be by using usb ethernet adapter or pcie ethernet card.

Could I just use the USB3 port with a basic ethernet-usb converter dongle? Or is that going to eat too much cpu?

First preference of course is an embedded cpu+dual LAN kind of setup.

In any case I still need a compact chassis, especially one that can be mounted to a 19" rack with/without adapters.

Aliexpress has a lot of options for what I want. Does anyone have experience with them? Regarding shipping times and customs duties.

BPI-R1

would this suite your purpose ?

its an SBC meant for an open source router.

More info here Banana Pi BPI-R1 - Banana Pi Wiki

Nerevarine said:
BPI-R1

would this suite your purpose ?

its an SBC meant for an open source router.

More info here Banana Pi BPI-R1 - Banana Pi Wiki

Correct me if I am wrong but there's only a single realtek NIC bridged to a broadcom switch in that right?

Bleh, ended up ordering an NUC off aliexpress.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
Bleh, ended up ordering an NUC off aliexpress.

11/11 sale? I am also thinking of ordering an item.

P.S. you will have to pay customs duty as I don't think any customs official will judge price of a decent NUC as below 5k.

Well, it should be much faster than the ER4 or the RB4011. I went for a J3160 CPU and 4x Intel NICs. 4GB RAM and 32GB SSD.

For reference, my current NAS from Asustor has a J1800 in it.

I think I overkilled it a little too much.

Also the whole thing cost me $205 after the measly discount.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
Well, it should be much faster than the ER4 or the RB4011. I went for a J3160 CPU and 4x Intel NICs. 4GB RAM and 32GB SSD.

For reference, my current NAS from Asustor has a J1800 in it.

I think I overkilled it a little too much.

Also the whole thing cost me $205 after the measly discount.

You are most likely going to pay $70-80 as customs duty on this.

Hmm really? I paid some Rs. 400 when I ordered a replacement keyboard for my thinkpad. The keyboard cost me Rs. 4k.

Maybe the seller under-invoiced the shipment and the same may happen here.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
Hmm really? I paid some Rs. 400 when I ordered a replacement keyboard for my thinkpad. The keyboard cost me Rs. 4k.

Maybe the seller under-invoiced the shipment and the same may happen here.

When was this? Situation changed a lot in last 1 year.Because of the misuse of under-invoicing when ordering from aliexpress,people actually started ordering kgs worth of goods & items to resell here & make a profit.Because of all this govt issued strict regulations regarding shipments coming from China/similar countries so now customs officials strictly implement the rules & anything worth more than 4-5k "in their eyes(they take help from google too) irrespective of invoice value" attracts customs duty. See this recent thread(your city only): BDF Tablets from SHENZHEN China

This was quite literally only a few weeks ago. I did have to go through hell and a Rs. 1000 name change penalty because the KYC regulations are extremely ******** (btw, are the rules on abusive terms still the same as back then?).

It's entirely possible that I'll have to pay 4-5k in duties and GST but it's still a lot cheaper than what resellers are currently charging. It's also a lot more powerful than the RB4011 and ER4 AFAIK so I suppose it's worth the premium.

W

As you said,keyboard cost was 4k & probably even less in the eyes of customs officials(after all,for them a keyboard is not a "costly item" being most likely they never ventured into pro/serious gaming

). You are right about it still being cheaper & better than what is available here even after incl the customs duty so I guess it is fine.Btw you used aliexpress standard shipping or something else.

Aliexpress standard shipping, which was free, or rather built into the cost. There was one listing by the same seller where the shipping cost was separate and the list price would go down by around $25-ish, but shipping was $30+ in that listing so it made more sense to go with the other listing.

Anything I should know?

W

No,just collecting all the info before ordering on aliexpress for the first time.

It should be pretty straightforward. Make sure it's a reputed seller.

W

Any need for submitting kyc docs for an item below 1k(original price,no under invoicing)?

This is the seller:

You may or may not have to. If it's arriving via courier they will ask you to upload the docs. With Indiapost not too sure.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
You may or may not have to. If it's arriving via courier they will ask you to upload the docs. With Indiapost not too sure.

I saw somewhere online asking for 2 docs out of voter id,pan,passport,DL,aadhaar. Is it so or just voter id won't do(as far as I know voter id confirms both photo id & address requirement unlike pan)?

W

Another thing,isn't everything marked aliexpress standard shipping comes via Indiapost.

I ordered some samples from TI.com and i was required to submit KYC

You need to submit ID and address proof. Depending on the courier it can be one or more documents.

W

Even if it comes via Indiapost(aliexpress standard shipping I believe)? I saw some comments elsewhere where people replied that they didn't have to submit any kyc(items were cheap 1-2k ones from aliexpress).

I really don't know for India Post.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
I really don't know for India Post.

Then which shipping method you usually use because I thought aliexpress standard shipping is the most used method nowadays.

Oh this is my first order from Aliexpress. I don't know whether it will come through India Post or a private courier.

My last shipment through the post office was from Japan and they charged me an insane amount in customs duty IIRC but no KYC was required. This was back in 2018 after a whopping 6+ months delay (unregistered parcel).

W

I see,from whatever I read online it seems aliexpress standard shipping first sent packages to Singapore & from there Singapore mail handles it till Indian border where it is handed over to India post.For cheap/uninteresting items there is usually no kyc but if package is coming through some pvt courier then kyc is must(e.g.read comments that yw special line something method uses gati courier in India for delivery) just like amazon global products where id is must.For any known/reputed shipping method like dhl/fedex etc(aka anything costlier than aliexpress standard shipping),kyc is must. It is also said that high chances of package being lost(aka stolen at post office centres) if it is coming via non-trackable shipping method.

P.S. just curious,what did you order from Japan.Some anime merchandise?

Gunpla. A P-Bandai 1/144 scale RG 00 Qan[T] Full Saber.

W

This one,right? RG 1/144 OO QAN[T] FULL SABER | PREMIUM BANDAI Singapore Nice!

Yup, that's the one.

So a Ubiquiti distributor I had been in touch with informed me today that they have received stock of the ER4. Since the Aliexpress shipment will take another two weeks, I ended up ordering the ER4 too lol...

I suppose I should use the other box for an NAS. The four ports can probably be aggregated (i210AT chips) and the max speed would be 4Gbit (8Gbit full duplex) so some 8TB+ NAS drives on external USB3 cages is probably sufficient.

W

Where did you get 8TB drives(internal ones) from,in India they are much costlier compared to abroad?

I haven't bought 8TB drives yet. I will get them in India obviously, even if it costs more.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
I haven't bought 8TB drives yet. I will get them in India obviously, even if it costs more.

If you will be using them in NAS then go with WD red series.Also make sure that whichever cage/nas enclosure you buy has enough ventilation.

Upcoming Black Friday and Cybermonday will have heavy discount for WD Red on Amazon.com.
If you have anyone from US coming over, get it from them.

Hmm, have any of the HGST products survived under WD? I use their Deskstar NAS drives in my current NAS.

The salesman for the Edgerouter nearly pulled a bait and switch with me.

He offered me the part for Rs. 15650 approximately when I first contacted him. I asked him if the price included GST. He said yes.

I asked him to lower the price, and told him I'd need more equipment next year, for a whole-house fiber optic LAN installation. That stuff is a money pit.

He lowered the price to Rs. 14.5k. I agreed to the price. It was not much more than the price in US dollars in current exchange rates.

Yesterday the goods arrived at his office, and I asked him for bank details so I'd transfer the funds to his account. He said he'd mail them to me, with the final amount payable. I went WTF, wasn't it 14.5k? He said no, it was 14.5k plus GST, which was dumb because we were negotiating from a 15.6k including GST price. So it is implied that the 14.5k included GST.

He said that I was wrong, so I insisted that he check his email. He said he would, and did not get back to me. Today his office emailed me the bill, which was for 17k after a 1% cash discount on the 14.5k. The dude called me up, and I told him that we had agreed to 14.5k and he could see that in the email.

He said he could not sell it for lower than the price I had been quoted, and basically said I could cancel if I did not like the price. I told him that I'd have to think about it.

In the evening I just emailed his company to cancel the order because we had agreed to 14.5k and I was not going to pay more than that. I had received an update from Aliexpress that my other router had reached India so the ER4 was no longer essential to my plans :-D

Literally in 10 minutes I got a call that his boss had agreed to close the deal at 14.5k and whether I was still willing to buy the item. I said I would. Calling their bluff paid off :lol:

Monday I'll get the revised bill and I'll pay them. They'll deliver the router to my office.

BTW, this story does not include the BS I had to before the distributor was willing to even sell me the item. They wanted my GST registration copy, PAN card copy etc before they would make an invoice.

W

Just goes on to show why India ranks so poorly(relatively speaking) in ease of doing business index.

Could be a little offtopic but so far all the items I bought from aliexpress did not have to pay a single rupee as custom duty. The biggest item i bought was a motherboard and also bought used processor though both were under 5k.

Item went missing only once even though I choose shipping method with tracking - got refund. Got two faulty items and got refund. For shipping even though China Post Registered Air Parcel is good it has issue of missing parcel and delayed parcel so it's always better to choose Ali express standard shipping and keep patience.

Yeah, the Singapore route is likely more efficient than the Chinese route, now that India's government is sifting through Chinese shipments with a fine-toothed comb.

My ER4 showed up today. It was pretty straightforward although time consuming to set up.

The pfsense appliance is in customs, and I have no clue how long it will be there. Hopefully I will get it in a couple of days, but I'm not optimistic about that. I'm expecting it to show up next week.

W

post a small review here after you setup everything.

Eh, it's the same as any other Edgerouter. I'm not really pushing the hardware yet. This one is in preparation for a move to 1Gbit and 3x as many networked devices.

Ugh, item stuck in customs - CN22 is missing. Now how the **** do I work with the postal machinery to fix things ;~;

W

Extreme Gamer said:
Ugh, item stuck in customs - CN22 is missing. Now how the **** do I work with the postal machinery to fix things ;~;

I think this "missing CN22" is their default for any reason but I think in case of products definitely needing customs duty payment,this is standard. @kg11sgbg had a similar experience I think.

Hmm, I should call Indiapost and find out.

Edit: They said I would recieve a letter from customs for that status.

If true, then my suspicions are more than confirmed that in the last 4-5 years importing goods has become much more of a hassle than it was earlier.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
Hmm, I should call Indiapost and find out.

Edit: They said I would recieve a letter from customs for that status.

If true, then my suspicions are more than confirmed that in the last 4-5 years importing goods has become much more of a hassle than it was earlier.

It is true & reason being,people heavily misused this facility importing Kgs of items from china to sell here in local markets at huge margins.

But it makes no sense to punish small packages imported for personal use.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
But it makes no sense to punish small packages imported for personal use.

That was just an example,people also boasted about getting mobiles from China at almost half of the prices here with similar specs a few years back not to mention reselling them here creating a double loss to govt(import taxes+local market taxes). That also alerted customs officials to small sized packets.

Extreme Gamer said:
Ugh, item stuck in customs - CN22 is missing. Now how the **** do I work with the postal machinery to fix things ;~;

You do nothing.
JUST WAIT FOR THE PACKAGE TO ARRIVE AT YOUR DOORSTEP.
By the way,what is your package? I mean what does it consist of?

It's a tiny computer. A pfsense appliance from minisys.

Also I'll be out of country for most of next month. Is there a possibility that I'll be contacted or have to be available to receive the package?

just wait a bit .. you will get it.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
Is there a possibility that I'll be contacted or have to be available to receive the package?

Not sure but as far as I know,local postman doesn't contact you over phone/sms before delivery so someone has to be there to receive the package.

whitestar_999 said:
Not sure but as far as I know,local postman doesn't contact you over phone/sms before delivery so someone has to be there to receive the package.

That is it, fully correct statement.
Requesting you not to worry about the package @Extreme Gamer .
YOU WILL GET IT.

Very reassuring, @kg11sgbg, thanks.

I may not be there but a family member certainly will be.

Yup...

Finally showed up yesterday. Was another 5k in customs duty out of my pocket. Total cost therefore became close to Rs. 20k on this appliance.

W

So is it still worth it at this final price.

Eh, it's not a great price but not particularly bad.

It's really, really small. A bit bigger than an apple TV yet.

Please post pics. of the product., @Extreme Gamer
If possible post a small review as mentioned earlier by @whitestar_999

Extreme Gamer said:
Finally showed up yesterday. Was another 5k in customs duty out of my pocket. Total cost therefore became close to Rs. 20k on this appliance.

The postal guy took the customs duty from you? From your hous ?E

mitraark said:
The postal guy took the customs duty from you? From your hous ?E

Yes the ordinary Postman or Deliveryman IS ASSIGNED THE TASK by Customs Deptt. THROUGH POSTAL DEPTT. to collect money with proper forms/challans/etc.

mitraark said:
The postal guy took the customs duty from you? From your hous ?E

That is correct.

@kg11sgbg, I'll post a picture on Sunday most likely, but for a review you will have to wait a long time because I'm going out of town next week and won't be back until January. Then I'll have to figure out what more components to buy - HDD enclosure, monitor etc to build my new NAS.

W

No hurry,take your time

Device came preinstalled with pfsense. I'm removing it and installing OpenSUSE leap 15.1

Since the purpose of that hardware has changed.