NanoStation 2

[Mad Dawg]

Hello all

I am a Wireless ISP and have been experimenting with various open source firmwares for possible use on our equipment (we run all Ubiquiti gear) anyways one of our key concerns has been to find a good set of QOS controls
(this is an area of great concern when running a wisp)

Our policy is not the heavy handed approach of blocking any particular type of traffic (ieP2P) but we must have an effective means of gently controlling it (our prefered method has been by using connection limits and is rather effective) but very few firmwares have this as an easy to configure option available in the GUI but Gargoyle sure does (nice)

anyways I will offer my review of Gargoyle running on a NanoStation 2 (Any negatives are not meant to offend the Developers in anyway but to provide an insite as to areas that they may want to give further consideration too)

First and foremost BIG kudos on your firmware guys it is some very nice work (and I have tried pretty much everything out there)

Pluses
One of the nicer interfaces I have used
(simple and easy to navigate)
Excellent QOS Controls ( Best I have tested yet ...hands down )
Separate QOS for up and down (Unbelievable I cant tell you guys how kewl that is for a wisp)
Quota System (Genius I have not seen this option before unless you are running a PPPoe/Radius Server for authentication)
Decent bandwidth Graphing
Overall Provides Good Connection Status information
Static Routes available in the GUI (You Bet)

Cons
These are mostly hardware specific to the Nano so it really has little to do with the overall firmware and for most users these items will be of little or no value anyways I am strictly reviewing as a Wireless network professional

The Ubiquit Nanos & Locos (Have Dual polarity antennas built in (one in Horizontal and one Verticle) we often use Horizontal Polarity over water or to minimize interfearance from other sources (This is not an option in gargoyle)

All the Ubiquiti gear can run in 20Mhz,10,Mhz and 5 Mhz (40mhz for some of the 5Ghz gear) channel widths (standard wifi is only 20Mhz) Using smaller Channel widths allows us two things minimize interfearance and keep our network invisible to standard wifi devices (Not an option)

Interface seems a little slugish but may be more related to the small brain and ram size of the Ubi equipment

Alignment LEDs on the back of the unit are not functional nor is there an alignment meter in the GUI (really need this for ease of installation)

No wireless interface statistics information (ie transfer rates, noise floor, signal strength ect.) much needed when using the radio as a client station

Thats about all I can see from the brief time I toyed with it
overall this is a great project and well worth trying

My Cons are probably more of wish list really and these features may not even be the intended use the developers had in mind for Gargoyle
We are definately in a commericial application but what I can state it has the potential to rival some commecial offerings an I would recommend Gargoyle over DD-WRT any day of the week

Anyways much appreciation for this project guys and I will definately keep an eye on it
if the developers wish to contact me I would be more than willing to discuss providing testing,feedback and even some Ubiquiti hardware to see this project mature
Gargoyle running on a RouterStation pro merged with some of Tomatos features would be a pretty hard to beat package
It would be a pretty happy day for me

Thanks Much

MD

[pbix]

Your feedback is appreciated. Nice to hear what people like and don't like. I have a few questions for you.

1) What version of Gargoyle did you evaluate?
2) Which important Tomato features are missing from Gargoyle?

pbix

[Mad Dawg]

Happy to provide and glad it is well recieved

1) I used the newest 1.1.7

My review above was more for using the radio as a client device
the tomato compairisons would be more specific to using the firmware as a router only platform (one firmware solution but two very different objectives)

I suppose it would best to explain what we use Tomato for now (and yes we do use Tomato in full production on our wisp ) we have 46 active towers sites and a very large coverage area 2511 sq Km

anyways we use tomato in router mode as a basic traffic shaper at the base of each tower (we disable its wireless completely) Tomato does a few things for us shapes tarffic, limits or drops unwanted traffic on our network long before it ever hits our backhauls and provides nice easy to view statisics for each site

Tomato Specific + Features

2) Tomato's graphing features really are second to none
and beyond many commercial offerings costing thousands
3) Very snappy interface
4) Ability to run cutom scripts (connection limits on a range of Ips)
5) Access Restriction Scheduling
6) Full blown Router mode
7) with a modded version it also shows usage per IP c/client
8) Testing tools basic ping tracert ect,
there is probably a few others I am forgetting


The porblems with it are that it is rather limited in cpu power (using layer 7 filters and a decent traffic load really bogs it down) Finding a supply of compatable hardware has become a real pain in the arse

I have contacted Tomatos developer on a couple occasions to see if he would consider porting it to the RouterStation or even an x86 platform (no way no how lol)

So I see Gargoyle as a potential alternative to be used with readily available and more powerful hardware (the RouterStation or RS-Pro)
as a straight router platform compairing Tomato to Gargoyle there are pluses and minuses on both sides
so to merge the best of both would be our ultimate solution

Likely the devlopers never intended for this type of use but this is what we (and other wisps) are doing with it
There is no doubt alot of commercial applications for a well rounded product.

if you would like to discuss this further PM me

regards

MD

[pbix]

In regards to Tomato I was looking for features that it had that Gargoyle did not have. In view of this I am not sure I understand much of what you have said in your last post.

2) Tomato's graphing features really are second to none
and beyond many commercial offerings costing thousands
3) Very snappy interface

Understood this part.

4) Ability to run cutom scripts (connection limits on a range of Ips)

Gargoyle can run custom scripts, what is this issue?

5) Access Restriction Scheduling

Gargoyle can restrict access based on a schedule using the IP quota feature. What is this issue?

6) Full blown Router mode

Gargoyle is definitely a full blown router. What do you mean here?

7) with a modded version it also shows usage per IP c/client

Gargoyle can graph based on an IP address, what is this issue?

8) Testing tools basic ping tracert ect,

Gargoyle has ping. You can easily add tracepath by typing "opkg install iputils-tracepath" at the command line. Tracepath has the same features as tracert.

[Eric]

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

A few questions/comments though (as if pbix hasn't asked enough above )

1) Tomato is certainly faster than Gargoyle (that I understand and probably isn't going to change), but I'm very interested in improving graphing features to equal or surpass Tomato. Could you please elaborate on what aspects of the Tomato graphs you feel are superior to what Gargoyle has to offer?

2) You can schedule access restrictions right now (you don't need to use quotas section). If you go to Access Restrictions and uncheck "All Day" or "Every Day", further options pop up to schedule exactly when you want the restriction to be active.

3) I too would appreciate it if you elaborate a little more on what you mean by "full blown router mode"

You're right in that I've chosen to focus less on the wireless controls and more on quotas/qos/access control features. It's not that I think wireless features are worthless, it's just a question of what I've spent my time on. I really appreciate your feedback, and may implement some of these wireless options sooner rather than later based on your feedback (though hostnames in the status section and linking QoS and quotas still have priority right now).

I may take you up on your offer to help debug/test some new features. Hopefully if I PM you regarding this in a month or two (while I take care of a few other higher priorities I mention above) you'll still be around/interested in this?

[Mad Dawg]

Hi Guys

Perhaps I was to hasty in my testing so I have loaded it up again and went through it in more detail

Anyways to respond to pbx

1) by custom scripts I mean as an example in tomato
there is a firewall scripts section where we can use something like this

#Drop invalid connections
iptables -I PREROUTING -t mangle -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j DROP
#Limit TCP connections per user
iptables -I FORWARD -p tcp --syn -m iprange --src-range 10.12.3.1-10.12.3.254 -m connlimit --connlimit-above 60 -j DROP
#Limit UDP and other connections per user
iptables -I FORWARD -m iprange --src-range 10.12.3.1-10.12.3.254 -p ! tcp -m connlimit --connlimit-above 60 -j DROP

This will do Conn limits on all our NATed clients Ip ranges and drop any invalid connections quick and easy it also has a scheduling feature for running custom scripts or commands at set time frames ect (This is not likely something that many people would probably have a need for though and is not really necessary in a client radio scenario it would be nice in Ap mode though or if using it as a separate router at each tower like we do ) This allows us to restrict client connections but leave our APs or ptp links untouched if desired

pbx I do not see where I could use such a script in Gargoyle or an equivalent method of accomplishing this

Access Restriction Scheduling

Yes I see it now ...I had to uncheck the
All Network Access to see the port options ect.
(occasionally we get requests to block chat, sites or Xbox from kids at certain times so this is a nice feature)

Ok perhaps Full blown router was a poor choice of words..my bad
To clarify I suppose its more of first impression really it did not have the look and feel of a real router interface with all the options bells and whistles to me
(and probably it isnt intended to )
but if you were going to use it on a platform such as the Routerstation or RS-pro with that extra horse power and interfaces we would like to see things like VLAN, individual port control, DNS caching, 1:1 NAT, Proxy ect...

For the per IP bandwidth
yes it is selectable from a drop down per IP but for ease of use with say 20 or so stations associated a quick once glance overview of all would be nice and then be able to take a closer view individually if we see something

I have been through the interface a number of times and I cant seem to find the ping tool anywhere I must be blind where is it (btw a ping watch dog/reboot tool would be good too)


Eric

Dont get me wrong gargoyle has decent graphing many others do not have any so your way ahead
It is not a functionality thing its there
I guess the best way to describe it (imho)
is its the polished look and feel of the multi colors ect.
More of a layout and design thing really
tomato also graphs QOS usage too which is nice

I can certainly understand the time and priority issues and you cant be all things to all people
my application is a commercial one but I just thought I would post how it stacked up to others and provide some feedback so dont anybody take anything I have said personally or with bad intentions

I really am looking for a better firmware option for the routerstation than DD-WRT
You are not likely making a living of this project so I commend you all you guys on your fine work it really is quite good and I will keep watching your project

You can always email me
Regards

Mark

[pbix]

pbx I do not see where I could use such a script in Gargoyle or an equivalent method of accomplishing this

I recommend your download and install WinSCP on your computer. Then you can use it to access /etc/firewall.user and enter your iptables commands there. These command will then be executed everytime your router boots.

I have been through the interface a number of times and I cant seem to find the ping tool anywhere I must be blind where is it (btw a ping watch dog/reboot tool would be good too)

For this type of work you access the Linux command line using SSH. I recommend "putty" if you are a Windows user. From the command line you can type ping and many other commands.

Oh, and you are correct that no one is making a living doing Gargoyle work.