Mini ITX Fanless Diskless Trixbox Server 2.6

I was going to go down this path and then I looked at the numbers.

The ROI for the few watts I am going to save was longer than my expected lifespan (I am on the large side of the bell curve and I smoke) so that went out the window.

The install on the CF card is a relative pain.

The MTBF on modern hard drives is higher than Enterprise SCSI drives of 10 years ago.

Then the deal breaker for me. I wanted to get a trixbox setup at home to IAX to our work system. I was in a hurry that night and found a P3 around 900Mhz in a pile of crap at the office, it was a small form factor IBM. I tossed a 40GB hard drive that had refurb stamped on it (probably means somebody dusted it off and made sure the pins where not bent) and 512MB of RAM. Make a long story short I loaded trix 2.2 on it, set it next to the bookshelf and have not touched it since last year!

Just an opinion.

Scott

I'll be building this exact machine this weekend:
Intel Atom MB (BOXD945GCLF)
2GB Ram
80 Gig 2.5 Seagate Drive

It's actually not fanless and obviously my config is not diskless but I expect it will work great. I will report if there were any issues.

We tried 2 of this, and hit some issues on NIC. You end up forgoing the on board NIC and instead using the PCI Slot with a second NIC.

I will still go for mini-itx D201GLY2 or D201GLY, both models work seamlessly with Trixbox and Elastix and Switchvox!

Darn it - my MB was faulty - awaiting replacement.

I added the r8101 LAN driver required for that board to the latest version of trixbox. Just install the iso and it should come right up. There should be no problems installing trixbox on a flash drive. I have tried it here and it works great.

So... what's the parts list to do one these look like?

a) If I wanted a mini-itx case what do y'all recommend?

b) What is the actual power draw? (guesstimated of course)

http://www.techonweb.com/products/productdetail.aspx?id=A02Q05&sr...

This is for a PURE VOIP small low use server.

I believe you still need to add a hd and ram but i can be mistaken.

either way this is a nice package.

Ward, it's not hot in Atlanta this time of year so I figure you've popped a cork?

A PBX on a laptop form factor? This is wrong on so many levels, semi-proprietary memory, no FRU's, if you want a GUI the overhead of running x on the Atom platform. The LAN interface is an underperformer for any serious work.

Other that the high 'cute' factor this is simply a toy.

I guess it depends upon your requirements. For a traveling companion or remote office, a NetBook is ideal. Lack of field replaceable parts is a plus in my book. That's kinda the whole idea behind the Atom motherboards. KDE actually works fine on this machine and the hit on memory is minimal. Would we recommend it for a home office with 100 employees? No. Would it work on a construction site to support a half dozen field engineers? Absolutely. Would it work in the branch office of a bank with 5 employees? Sure. Does it need a UPS to provide uninterruptible service? No, it's has a battery. Does it work for the zillions of traveling salesmen that need an encrypted link back to their home office databases, phone system and voicemail? You bet. Not sure what "LAN interface is an underperformer" means. It's got a 10/100 wired connection plus Wireless B/G both of which work out of the box with no performance degradation that I can detect. Yeah, the form factor may look like a toy, but you might want to try doing real work on an Atom platform before you knock it. You'll note that Rhino now has a shipping box with the dual core version of the same toy motherboard. Shouldn't be very long 'til Acer has the same... BUT I COULD BE WRONG.

P.S. We still plan to introduce a "home office" small footprint system that is field upgradeable and can support additional FXO/FXS cards as well, and it will include the dual core Atom motherboard that this portable unit (currently) lacks.

Cool, okay first of anyone even reads a fraction of my posts they will know that I challenge peoples assuptions to help them think through a problem or an idea. I am orders of magnitude harder on myself and at any time am ready to challenge my assumptions.

You bet, in fact I just ordered one last week it has not come in yet. It's perfect when you don't need a full form factor machine. Most of the applications I use are browser based so it's all I need. Never was down on the form factor. Even with my tireed old eyes I was surprised how readable it was. Can't wait until mine comes in (I ordred from Ingram befoe I knew of this deal however I can tell you Ward's price is great)

It's not designed for 100% duty cycle so this is where I would be concerened. For the two environments you listed and any other small deployment the PIKA appliance is ideal. It also supports up to four analog ports. It is designed for continuos duty cycle and priced about the same. It is also a less attractive theft target.

Here is a case where I wase citing someone elst. Knowing my reading habits it was probably Tom's Hardware. The processor load from the network adapter was quite high compared to the reference chipset they showed on the graph. The analogy was made to the softmodem days, I think they may have moved IP packet dissasebly off the chipset and into the driver to save on power and silicon. No first had experince (yet).

I have no issues with the Atom processor, the dual core should allow us to run g.729 without any issues for at least 10 concurrent sessions. I can't wail to benchmark.

One more point on the PIKA. The CentOS/FreePBX build uses a lite version of SQL is optomized for the RAM disk. Excellent performance.

I have a fanless sucker on the floor next to me when i test and develop. Trixbox 2.6.1.13 is installed and it works great! Tried installing on a CF but it was really slow. I don't know if it was the size of the card (Sandisk, extreme IV, 4GB) that made the install and boot slow. Switched to a 160GB sata drive and no problems. Going to make another try with the CF when I have the time. Would be nice to have SSD and ability to switch between different installations "on the fly".

MB VIA EPIA Mini-ITX CN1000 Fanless (EIPA-CN10000EG)
Case is Travlac (TRAVLAC158BLACK)
CF adapter for IDE (CFREADERC137)

Im also thinking of using an ITX-board at home but with dual LAN and let it acts like a dhcp on the localnet, that would be sweet.

We use a dual-core atom motherboard in our PhoneBochs Mini platform along with Sangoma TDM cards. Really a nice setup for smaller installations, I don't think you'll have any issues.

--

Creator of world class Linux/FreeBSD based appliances, including the popular PhoneBochs telephony appliance.

I just installed an atom based TB Server in a remote IT support office of a University that supports 4 lines and 4 IP Phones. Something like this is perfect for a task such as this where there arent many calls going in and out (granted all the lines are PSTN and go through a Digium FXO Card) or as a home server (same thing I run at home and have 12 extensions and can handle around 9 calls at a time (haven't had the resources to test more calls but CPU usage barely peaked and I am running 100% SIP lines in and out).

All in all, ATOM is good for small deployments, but not for large scale. One thing I want to do is compare my home setup with a single core Atom to a Dual core...maybe in a few months I can do that...

My home Trixbox installation is a Trix 2.2 installation, running on a Geode GX, 400MHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD. I compiled the 2.6.18 kernel tuned for the hardware as the 2.6.9 kernel didn't include support for the Geode's UDMA IDE interface. It's only set up to use G711 and GSM codecs, as iLBC and G729 use too much CPU even for two concurrent calls. But, for my home VoIP switch it works great, and its total power consumption from the mains is just 10 watts - under load. That's including hosting the UK rickroll-by-phone line, and more recently an exerimental MP3-streamed live traffic news line.

I'd worry about all the interupts the digium cards generate with these atom processor boxes, you'd be much better off using a Sangoma interface card or external pots interface box of some kind.