LinkSys NSS4000 NAS w/ RM7000+PMON2000

[Toru Nishimura]

Guys,

I've been away from MIPS camp for long time since I have
no good modern MIPS HW at hand. I found that one of LinkSys
NAS product named NSS4000 is a very good candidate to
port NetBSD. PLS check out http://www.tmk.com/blog/?p=8
It has 600MHz RM7035C and a variety of modern PCI
peripherals. The most interesting aspect is that it has
PMON2000 bootloader and HW provides serial console connector
to control. I guess it's a kind of rare NAS box which equips L2
cache inside. I hope the product would gain successful share
and would be replaced with bettter processor like MSP8150
(re-badged RM9150) in some future.

Toru Nishimura/ALKYL Technology

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[Andy Ruhl]

Post by Toru Nishimura
Guys,
I've been away from MIPS camp for long time since I have
no good modern MIPS HW at hand. I found that one of LinkSys
NAS product named NSS4000 is a very good candidate to
port NetBSD. PLS check out http://www.tmk.com/blog/?p=8
It has 600MHz RM7035C and a variety of modern PCI
peripherals. The most interesting aspect is that it has
PMON2000 bootloader and HW provides serial console connector
to control. I guess it's a kind of rare NAS box which equips L2
cache inside. I hope the product would gain successful share
and would be replaced with bettter processor like MSP8150
(re-badged RM9150) in some future.

Hmm, nice machine. Dual gigabit ethernet controllers and 4 disks...

Do you know if you can netboot it similar to the NSLU2? I was going to
try to find an NSLU2 to play with, but I'm really not smart enough to
do hardware hacking.

This thing could make a really nice box. It's still a little pricey though.

Andy

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[Toru Nishimura]

Andy Ruhl sez;

Post by Andy Ruhl
Hmm, nice machine. Dual gigabit ethernet controllers and 4 disks...
Do you know if you can netboot it similar to the NSLU2?

PMON2000 is a feature rich bootloader made by the man who
ported the world first real BSD Unix to R4000. The port was called
"pica".

http://www.opsycon.se/pmonmain

Started from the original PMON, PMON2000 has been acumulating
many features by importing code from NetBSD and OpenBSD. I would
not be surprised seeing NASS4000 even boots ELF kernel on FFS
filesys.

Post by Andy Ruhl
This thing could make a really nice box. It's still a little pricey though.

The 64bit OS capable machine could be made in lower price and I feel
puzzling indeed about the wrong combination of HW.

- PM8172 is SysAD32 system controller. By replacing it with other
"industory grade" one like Marvell Discovery LT you can buy
133MHz/166MHz SysAD64 frontside bus w/ DDR333 memory and
buildin GbE.
- Having RM9120/9220(dual E9K core) could be instant win (but
PMC-Sierra abandond the entire RM9000 line)
- then moderate replacement choice would be RM9150.

Toru Nishimura / ALKYL Technology

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[Tim Mueller]

Post by Toru Nishimura
Andy Ruhl sez;

Post by Andy Ruhl
Hmm, nice machine. Dual gigabit ethernet controllers and 4 disks...
Do you know if you can netboot it similar to the NSLU2?

PMON2000 is a feature rich bootloader made by the man who
ported the world first real BSD Unix to R4000. The port was called
"pica".
http://www.opsycon.se/pmonmain
Started from the original PMON, PMON2000 has been acumulating
many features by importing code from NetBSD and OpenBSD. I would
not be surprised seeing NASS4000 even boots ELF kernel on FFS
filesys.

Post by Andy Ruhl
This thing could make a really nice box. It's still a little pricey though.

The 64bit OS capable machine could be made in lower price and I feel
puzzling indeed about the wrong combination of HW.
- PM8172 is SysAD32 system controller. By replacing it with other
"industory grade" one like Marvell Discovery LT you can buy
133MHz/166MHz SysAD64 frontside bus w/ DDR333 memory and
buildin GbE.
- Having RM9120/9220(dual E9K core) could be instant win (but
PMC-Sierra abandond the entire RM9000 line)
- then moderate replacement choice would be RM9150.
Toru Nishimura / ALKYL Technology

Toru,

I now this is from seven years ago, but did you ever make any progress on
this? I have an NSS4000 that's basically bricked itself, and I'd like to
find an option other than the Cisco-supplied o/s.

I'm considering yanking the mobo out and replacing with something
ATOM-based, or even a Pi B+.

Cheers.

Tim Mueller


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