Axiomware Systems Netrunr Series User manual

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AXIOMWARE SYSTEMS, INC.
Netrunr Series
NetrunrEdgeHardwareManual

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A X I O M W A R E S Y S T E M S , I N C .
Netrunr Edge Hardware Manual
©Axiomware Systems, Inc.
229 Polaris Ave • Suite 15
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone [phone] • www.axiomware.com

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1. Overview.
Netrunr Edge Server (NES) is designed to provide connectivity, compute and storage functionality for your
IoT network deployments. The NES architecture is optimized to support large scale data networking
functions. A quad-core x86-64-bit processor is connected high speed interfaces like three gigabit ethernet
ports, three mini-PCI Express slots (mPCIe), two external USB 3.0 ports, four internal USB 2.0 ports, SATA
port, SD card and multiple GPIOs.
2. Packing list.
1. Netrunr Edge Server
2. 12V, 2A DC power supply –North American power plug
3. Dual band (2.4GHz, 5.8GHz) antenna (labeled ANT1)
4. 2.4GHz, 5dBi antenna (labeled ANT2)
5. RS232C Null modem cable
6. Debian 9 installation USB drive
7. 4x rubber feet
3. Major parts.
3.1 Front panel
Figure 1: Netrunr Edge –Front

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The front panel of Netrunr Edge has three user-programmable green LEDs. The LEDs are connected to
following pins of AMD FCH south bridge as listed in Table 1.
LED
PIN ID
Default Function
LED1
G57
Power/Heartbeat
LED2
G58
WAN activity
LED3
G59
SSD hard drive activity
Table 1: LED connections
Software to control is provided as Linux kernel module through Axiomware software repository on Github
(https://github.com/axiomware).
3.2 Back Panel
The back panel of the NES has ports listed in Table 2. Default functionality (as WAN or LAN) of ethernet
ports can be modified using software. Functionality of ANT1 and ANT2 is dependent of installed options.
PORT
Default Function
Connector/Type
ANT1
Dual-band Wi-Fi Antenna
RP-SMA
RS232C
Serial port (DTE)
DB9
LAN1
LAN –Gigabit ethernet
RJ45
LAN2
LAN –Gigabit ethernet
RJ45
WAN
WAN –Gigabit ethernet
RJ45
USB
Dual USB 3.0 Host ports
USB host
12V
DC power input
Barrel (center power)
ANT2
2.4GHz Bluetooth Antenna
RP-SMA
Table 2: Back panel
Figure 2: Back panel
Power is supplied by a barrel connector (5.5mm OD, 2.5 mm id), with center pin at 12V. Nominal power
consumption of Netrunr Edge server is TBD.

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WAN port supports Wake-on-LAN (WOL) feature. LAN 1 and LAN2 ports do not support WOL features.
WOL can be activated by the events listed in Table 3. Most common WOL systems use Type G events.
Event type
Description
P
Wake on PHY activity
U
Wake on unicast messages
M
Wake on multicast messages
B
Wake on broadcast messages
G
Wake on MagicPacket™
Table 3: Wake-on-LAN event types
3.3 Serial port (RS232C)/Boot-up
The back panel serial port is live from BIOS startup to full operating system bootup. The default serial port
parameters are 115200 8N1, with no flow control. Pin-out of the port is listed in Table 4. A null-modem
cable must be used to connect to another computer. Press F10 during bootup to enter boot devices
selection, select Payload[setup] to select BIOS options.
This serial port access is useful during development phase and porting of operating system. During regular
production use, network ports (WAN/LAN1/LAN2/Wi-Fi) can be used for access and control of NES.
Pin
Signal
Direction
1
Data Carrier Detect (DCD)
Input
2
Receive Data (RXD)
Input
3
Transmit Data (TXD)
Output
4
Data Terminal Ready (DTR)
Output
5
Ground
Ground
6
Data Set Ready (DSR)
Input
7
Request to Send (RTS)
Output
8
Clear to Send (CTS)
Input
9
Ring Indicator (RI)
Input
Table 4: RS232 port
4. Internals.
Open the metal enclosure of NES to access the mini-PCIexpress slots, SD card slot, SATA and the dual sim-
card. It is recommended that NES is powered-down during this operation. The main CPU is on the bottom
side of the PCB. The bottom section of the enclosure is thermally connected to the processor and functions
as heat-sink. Four screws are used to secure the motherboard to the bottom section of the enclosure. A
thermal compound is used at the interface between the heatsink and processor.
Major connectors of NES motherboard are listed in Figure 3. Use Figure 4 to identify the pin 1 location of
specific connectors that are listed below.

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Figure 3: NES motherboard - internal component identification
4.1 Mini-PCI express slots
Netrunr Edge Server provides ample expandability and customization using three mini-PCIexpress
connectors. Please refer to Table 5 for details of capabilities of each slot. NES has dual SIM card. In normal
configuration, J2 SIM card is connected to J14 slot and J1 SIM card is connected to J15 slot. SIM card can
be swapped by software using GPIO G33 (due to pull-up logic, 0 = swap, 1 = normal operation).
ID
Default function
Capabilities
J14
mSATA SSD
SATA bus, USB bus, J1 or J2(default) SIM card
J15
4G-LTE/LoRa
USB bus, J1(default) or J2 SIM card
J16
Wi-Fi/4G-LTE/LoRa
PCI express, USB bus –(SIM on 4G card)
Table 5: mPCIexpress slots
4.2 Internal USB 2.0 host ports
Netrunr Edge Server provides four internal USB2.0, high speed ports. The two USB ports on J13 is used for
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios. The two USB ports on J17 are unused. Both the ports follow the PC standard
for internal USB ports. The 5V supply pins on J13 and J17 can supply up to 1A current, each. The pin-out
of J13 and J17 is listed in Table 6. The two USB ports in each connector are identified as USB1 and USB2.

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Pin
Signal
1
5V
2
5V
3
USB1-DN
4
USB2-DN
5
USB1-DP
6
USB2-DP
7
GND
8
GND
9
NO PIN - CONNECTOR INTERLOCK
10
GND
Table 6: Internal USB port pinout
4.3 SD Card
An SD card can be used for data-storage or as boot medium (main OS). SD card interface is directly
connected to main CPU. Use sdhci driver to access this feature.
4.4 SATA
J6 SATA connector can be used for drives. J7 provides 5V for SATA drives. SATA drives can be used for data
storage or as boot medium (main OS).
4.5 COM2 port
NES provides an additional COM port on J4 header. This COM is low voltage (not RS23 signal levels). Do
not apply high voltage to the pins.
Pin
Signal
1
3.3V
2
TXD
3
RXD
4
GND
5
5V
Table 7: COM 2 port
4.6 I2C and LED
The J5 connector is unpopulated. This connector can be used access the I2C bus. The pinout of the
connector is listed in Table 8.
Pin
Signal
1
3.3V
2
SCL
3
SDA
4
GND
5
Do Not Connect
6
Do Not Connect
7
Do Not Connect

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8
Do Not Connect
Table 8: J5 Pinout
4.7 GPIO
The J20 connector provides access to the GPIO port. GPIO is generated by the Nuvoton NCT5104.D I/O
controller. GPIO pins operate at 3.3V logic level. The pinout for GPIO is listed in Table 9
Pin
Signal
Pin
Signal
1
GPIO0
2
GPIO1
3
GPIO2
4
GPIO3
5
GPIO4
6
GPIO5
7
GPIO6
8
GPIO7
9
GPIO8
10
GPIO9
11
GPIO10
12
GPIO11
13
GPIO12
14
GPIO13
15
GPIO14
16
GPIO15
17
GPIO16
18
GPIO17
19
GND
20
5V
Table 9: GPIO pinout
4.8 RTC battery
A 1.5V LR44 battery is used real-time clock and NV-CMOS parameter retention.
4.9 Temperature Monitoring
CPU core and motherboard temperature is monitored by a thermal sensors. To install driver support for
temperature sensor, please install the lm-sensors package. Under Debian 9, use the following command:
# Install software
> sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
# Execute software
> sensors
k10temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1: +49.4°C (high = +70.0°C)
(crit = +105.0°C, hyst = +104.0°C)
fam15h_power-pci-00c4
Adapter: PCI adapter
power1: 9.27 W (interval = 0.01 s, crit = 6.00 W)
4.10 Wi-Fi
Netrunr Edge uses a Realtek RTL8811CU Wi-Fi radio. This is a dual-band 802.11ac (abgn+ac) Wave2, MU-
MIMO chipset. Since this radio was recently released, the drivers may not be present in all Linux
distributions.

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# Check Wi-Fi support
> sudo iwconfig
enp3s0 no wireless extensions.
enp2s0 no wireless extensions.
wlx30eb1f04ecad unassociated Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
lo no wireless extensions.
enp1s0 no wireless extensions.
br0 no wireless extensions.
wlp0s18u1u2 unassociated Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
If the command does not discover any wireless extensions, drivers for RTL8811CU are not present.
Axiomware provides the source code and instructions for compiling the wireless drivers on our Github
repository.
4.11 Bluetooth
Netrunr Edge uses the BCM20704, a dual-mode Bluetooth 4.2 SoC from Cypress Semiconductor. All
current Linux kernels (3.10+) have built-in driver support. An external 5dBi antenna is provided for optimal
coverage.
4.12 Motherboard chipset support
All devices on the NES motherboard are supported by current Linux distributions by default. Please
contact Axiomware if a specific feature is missing.

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4.13 AES-NI support
NES processor supports AES-NI instructions to accelerate AES-128 and AES-256 operations. All current
encryption and VPN frameworks on Linux will use AES-NI instructions by default. AES-NI will provide 10x
to 50x boost for encrypted streams on the gigabit interfaces.
5. Known issues and fixes.
5.1 I2C address conflict between SP5100 watchdog timer and piix4
If watchdog timer is not required, the changes listed below are not required. A warning message is printed
out during boot process; this can be safely ignored. To enable the use of SP5100 watchdog timer, blacklist
piix4. The following commands can be used in Debian 9:
# login as root user
> su
> cat > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist<<EOF
blacklist i2c_piix4
EOF
# update
> update-initramfs -u
# reboot
> reboot

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Figure 4: NES internal - Motherboard connector pin identification