Support for Mikrotik Switching Hardware 1G/10 - CRS Series with Marvell ARM 32bit 98DX3236 SOC (Prestera)

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has run OpenWRT on any of devices/SoC in $subject and if yes if there are snapshots or builds I could try. I have a pair of CRS305-1G-4MSik+rIoNTik and would love to use them with OpenWrt.

Thanks 1000x,
Mischa

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2

Not really, there should be upstream support for the SoC and I think also in U-boot but nobody has tried as far as I know

3

I found a link to a report where someone seemed to have a bit of success but then I found nothing else mentioned...

4

Hi there,

For my new home I was thinking of the Mikrotik CRS328-4C-20S-4S+RM It uses the same Marvel Hardware 98DX3236 In a marvel pdf I found that they partner with Sartura. Satura is able to cover software development services from the bootloader and operating system support all the way to the application
level. Sartura is an active contributor in the open source community
for OpenWrt and U-boot projects. These include platforms based on
Marvell ARMADA and Kirkwood SoC. contact luka.perkov@sartura.hr
PDF is here

5

Did you try running OpenWrt on the CRS305-1G-4S+IN?

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6

Marvell's Mikrotik-specific switching hardware, and Prestera stuff in general, has one major problem working with OpenWrt: it has to run using Core Prestera Software Suite, or CPSS. CPSS is mature but uses a large number of components outside of Linux mainline, so there's essentially no chance that OpenWrt maintainers will accept it as a project patch.

Here's an article about using CPSS: https://dev.to/ivan_kuten/linux-and-cpss-assembly-on-marvell-board-with-prestera-dx-switch-1agg

The alternative, for ifever and whenever it becomes available, is Microchip's SparX-5 chipset, whenever that becomes available. Here's a mailing list discussing the comparison: https://www.mail-archive.com/netdev@vger.kernel.org/msg390339.html

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