Soekris

From JasonAntmanWiki

This is a general page listing some information I have compiled on the Soekris line of embedded computers.

Contents 1 Installing an OS 1.1 With existing OS 1.2 PXEboot Installation 2 Serial Terminal 2.1 net4826 2.2 net4501 2.3 Terminal 3 See Also 4 External Links

[edit] Installing an OS

For my net4501 the installation is quite simple - it uses a plug-in CF card which can be written to via a USB adapter on another machine. Just 'dd' an image onto the CF card. My eBay-bought net4826-50, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult. It has a permanently-attached 128 Mb CF memory chip soldered to the board. Therefore, the only way to install new software is via a PXE boot, requiring a TFTP server and DHCP. I have written a simple HOWTO: Soekris PXE HowTo.

[edit] With existing OS

I bought a used net4826 online, and it came with a version of Linux already installed. This model has soldered-on CF memory. Unlike my net4501 router/firewall, I can't just pull out the CF card, put it in a USB->CF reader/writer on my laptop, and dd over the image.

So, looking at the Metrix Pyramid Linux page, I found a simple upgrade HowTo. Basically, you just download your image file and copy it to your CF disc - usually /dev/discs/disc0/disc.
wget -O - url://url.to.the/file.img | gunzip > /dev/discs/disc0/disc
They also provide a PXE Boot HowTo.

wget -O - http://192.168.0.9/net48xx-1.231.img > /dev/discs/disc0/disc

Note: This should work, but I couldn't get wget to work. It's there, but does nothing.

[edit] PXEboot Installation

This assumes you already have a TFTP server setup, and know how to configure your DHCP server for PXE.

I just followed the howto here with perfect results. I have also written a smaller version of it: Soekris PXE HowTo.

[edit] Serial Terminal

Here are the serial terminal settings that seem to work for the Soekris. Be sure to update /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf (for OpenBSD) to keep the hardware and OS terminal speeds the same.

[edit] net4826

9600 N 8 1

[edit] net4501

19200 N 8 1

[edit] Terminal

I highly recommend using Minicom for terminal emulation. Be sure to clear out any modem dial strings. Set your terminal type to ANSI.

[edit] See Also

Embedded Systems
Soekris PXE HowTo
Soekris WAP HowTo

[edit] External Links

Soekris Homepage