Re: Opengear alternatives that support 5g?

[Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org>]

Mike,

Thanks for that info. Alas, I’m not seeing any Mikrotik 5G devices cheaper than a ~$500  Peplink. Am I misunderstanding 
your suggested solution?

 -mel

On Apr 26, 2024, at 9:50 PM, Mike Lyon <mike.lyon () gmail com> wrote:


Peplink is nice, but there are cheaper options: Mikrotik-dot-com

Then for cellular service, sign up for an IOT with an IOT MVNO that bills usage based (and can also offer you a static, 
public, IP address AND will also allow you to build a VPN across all of your devices) such as SimBase:  simbase-dot-com



Cheers,
Mike

On Apr 26, 2024, at 21:37, Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org> wrote:

 I’ve been loooking at the $600 Peplink MAX BR1-MINI (HW3) industrial 5G router. It has a 1x embedded 5G modem 
(Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and FirstNet). three GigE ports, four antenna connectors, and comes with an stick antenna set 
and AC PS.  It uses a nanoSIM. Yes, it’s a pure IP router with no knowledge of serial protocols. So I would just put an 
air console behind it to get to my serial ports. I’m still evaluating 5G plans, and Verizon just offered an amazing $15 
per month unlimited data deal, but it seems to have a 50 gig limit before you get to throttling. That might not matter 
at all with serial traffic though.

We've been using the Netgear 4G cellular router, but that’s becoming increasingly unreliable. The NG has a nailed up 
IPsec VPN tunnel, obviating the need for a static IP, and the keepalive traffic is low enough that it doesn’t cost us 
much on the 4G network. I’m hoping 5G will be even cheaper and faster.

I’d love to see if anybody found anything better before I spring for a Peplink test unit.


 -mel

On Apr 26, 2024, at 9:45 AM, Warren Kumari <warren () kumari net> wrote:






On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 12:43 AM, Saku Ytti <saku () ytti fi<mailto:saku () ytti fi>> wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 03:11, David H <ispcolohost () gmail com<mailto:ispcolohost () gmail com>> wrote:

Curious if anyone has particular hardware they like for OOB / serial management, similar to OpenGear, but preferably 
with 5G support, maybe even T-Mobile support? It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get static IP 4g machine accounts 
out of Verizon, and the added speed would be nice too. Or do you separate the serial from the access device 
(cell+firewall, etc.)?

You could get a 5G Catalyst with an async NIM or SM.

But I think you're setting up yourself for unnecessary costs and failures by designing your OOB to require static IP. 
You could design it so that the OOB spokes dial-in to the central OOB hub, and the OOB hub doesn't care what IP they 
come from, using certificates or PSK for identity, instead of IP.


Yup, I agree — but that simply rewrites the question to be:
"Curious if anyone has particular hardware they like for OOB / serial management, similar to OpenGear, but preferably 
with 5G support, which can be a spoke that dials in to the central OOB hub, and the OOB hub doesn't care what IP they 
come from, using certificates or PSK for identity, instead of IP."

I've been on the same quest, and I have some additional requests / features. Ideally it:

1: would be small - my particular use-case is for a "traveling rack", and so 0U is preferred.

2: would be fairly cheap.

3: would not be a Raspberry-Pi, a USB hub and USB-to-serial cables. We tried that for a while, and it was clunky — the 
SD card died a few times (and jumped out entirely once!), people kept futzing with the OS and fighting over which 
console software to use, installing other packages, etc.

4: support modern SSH clients (it seems like you shouldn't have to say this, but… )

5: actually be designed as a termserver - the current thing we are using doesn't really understand terminals, and so we 
need to use 'socat -,raw,echo=0,escape=0x1d TCP:<termserver>:<port>' to get things like tab-completion and "up-arrow 
for last command" to work.

6: support logging of serial (e.g crash-messages) to some sort of log / buffer / similar (it's useful to be able to see 
what a device barfed all over the console when it crashes.


The Get Console Airconsole TS series meets many of these requirements, but it doesn't do #6. It also doesn't really 
feel like they have been updating / maintaining these.

Yes, I fully acknowledge that #3 falls into the "Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this" camp, but, well…

W




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++ytti