Web Server Packed into RJ45 Connector 448
VinceTronics writes "Electronic Design magazine has a review (.pdf) of the XPort by Lantronix, a product that packs an entire web server into the volume of an RJ45 connector! This includes an 80186 controller, an OS, the TCP/IP stack, a 10/100 Ethernet transceiver, and the LAN interface magnetics. Downside is that the serial interface to the controller tops out at 300 kbps, but for $33 (in 10K quantities) it's a cool, easy way to net-enable just about anything."
mirror (Score:2, Informative)
The article (I hate PDF) (Score:2, Informative)
No big deal... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No big deal... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No big deal... (Score:3, Insightful)
Point is consumer electronics manufacturers can use it to internet enable their devices at very low R&D cost.
Assuming, that is, they're willing to bump the retail price by $30 - $50.
Which they won't be. Until there's *serious* demand for this stuff.
Re:No big deal... (Score:3, Funny)
Good point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wake me up when they're selling them at $1 a piece in quantities of 10k, then we'll see a revolution
Re:Good point. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good point. (Score:5, Insightful)
And more to the point - it allows you to sell $399 fridge without an energy usage graph, or the exact same fridge, but with a CD-ROM and an Ethernet jack, so that you can view the energy graph from your PC, for $699, you've just made $300 on $33 worth of parts. That's a great way for fridgemakers to boost margins too :)
Re:No big deal... (Score:4, Funny)
The additional price is only an issue if you consider this item being added to some product as new functionality. This is a godsend to any product in development that had some type of networking integration already slated for its feature set. In fact, for products being designed with this type of functionality in mind, this might actually reduce the final cost.
Engineer Drone: "Yeah, hey boss- we could build it ourselves for a boatload of cash, or we could shell out $30/pop for 10K of these things and spend a few weeks integrating them into the widget. Whaddya think?"
PHB: "Ka-ching!"
Re:No big deal... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they mean $33 each for quantities of 10k or more, not $33 for 10k!!
Re:No big deal... (Score:2)
Re:No big deal... (Score:3, Funny)
With friends like that who needs enemies?
Good Thing (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good Thing (Score:4, Funny)
Ahh... but then again, *maybe* it is. Wouldn't that be the cat's ass?
Re:Good Thing (Score:2)
Great! (Score:3, Funny)
Bring on IPv6 to deal with it!
Re:Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you planning on making your fridge world visible? If not, your appliances could all sit behind NAT and you'd still only need a single IP address for your entire house.
I wouldn't want to get home and find out I've been H4X0R3D and have a freezer full of rotten food, so I don't think I'd ever give them world visible addresses.
--
Not that IPv6 is a bad thing, but this probably wouldn't significantly grow the total number of world routable addresses much, as they'd be on private nets.
Re:Great! (Score:2)
N.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
All your bouillabaisse are belong to us.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait to code a MUD (multi-user dungeon) for my fridge!
Re:Great! (Score:4, Funny)
You are eaten by a grue.
Re:Great! (Score:3, Funny)
Author: Weird Al Yankovic
There's somethin' weird in the fridge today.
I don't know what it is.
Food I can't recognize.
My roommate won't throw a thing away.
I guess it's probably his.
It looks like it's alive . .
And livin' in the fridge . . . livin' in the fridge,
Livin' in the fridge . . . livin' in the fridge.
There's something gross in the fridge today,
It's green and growin' hair.
It's been there since July.
If you can name the object
In that baggie over there,
Then mister, you're a
These seem cool (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd still love to have one to play around with, though!
Re:These seem cool (Score:2)
I would love to have one and plug it in any empty connection at school/work/etc
I could host everything from there!
Re:These seem cool (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet someone could generally walk in the frontdoor with a laptop and sit in the meeting room to accomplish the same thing without anbody saying anything.
Re:These seem cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I think physical security has to be number one. Secondly, think about how these things work.
I assume that the bug will sniff interesting data and pipe it out of the LAN into the hands of the cracker. So we need to tighten outbound security. Web traffic is routinely proxied, so the bug would have to know where the proxy is. Now how about we
Re:These seem cool (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:These seem cool (Score:2)
Re:These seem cool (Score:5, Funny)
Because such a computing device can be misused, we need to write our legislators and get these outlawed.
Not that big of a downside... (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems doesn't seem like that big of a deal, for the kind of appications this is targeted for (security system modules, refrigerators, answering machines, etc...) I'd think 300 kbps is more than adaquate, you can even do some streaming video, with a reasonable bit-rate.
Re:Not that big of a downside... (Score:3, Informative)
Imagine a beowolf cluster of these... (Score:3, Funny)
Let me get this straight (Score:2)
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:2)
Armed with this and a crossover cable you could do instant network card, network settings and browser settings tests.
A hell of a lot easier than debugging your network to see if a workstation is working properly. In some scenarios anyway
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, there'll be so many, it'll simultaneously turn around the tech slump AND drive us all to IPv6.
Until, of course, someone mistakenly installs 10,000 of these babies in the server room. All those geeks...<shudder>
Forget about stealth Dreamcasts! (Score:5, Insightful)
If somehow someone puts one of those in your network closet (or heck, anywhere on the network), good luck finding it -- it's a connector for godsakes!
Re:Forget about stealth Dreamcasts! (Score:5, Interesting)
-Chris
Re:Forget about stealth Dreamcasts! (Score:5, Interesting)
The best protection against this is that with the above mentioned precaution it is unnecessary. If someone can smuggle themselves into your building, install a piece of hardware onto your network, and smuggle themselves out, then back in and out again to remove the device, why not just install a keylogger onto the back of someone's keyboard and get admin priviledges?
Personally, I'm hoping this gets integrated into webcams. I would love to setup a camera out of the side window of my basement to know when the carpool has come, but really don't feel like putting a full server into that environment.
Re:Forget about stealth Dreamcasts! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Forget about stealth Dreamcasts! (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right. This is a major drawback.
What we need is help from some hardware hackers. Surely someone skilled with electronics could build a, say, calculator sized board, duct taped to a square 6-volt lantern battery, that would have both the function of a hub and a packet sniffer using a small embedded microcontroller.
The way I propose building it, such a device would plug between an ethernet jack and a computer. It would install inline. (Although my proposed construction method is too bulky to be hidden inline, but the construction price is right. So it needs to go "inline" up in the suspended ceiling.
Since it is inline, it doesn't "take up" an ethernet port. It piggybacks on a legitimate device that is entitled to have a network connection.
A regular portscan of your network ip address range would find this, then you can just pull the connection at the other end.
Not true. Just because the thing listens on ethernet does not mean it needs to respond to portscans. Heck, it doesn't even have to have an IP address. It doesn't even need to have a MAC address!
Late at night, when the device the sniffer is piggybacked onto isn't doing anything, our sniffer could then use the same MAC address and IP address as the piggybacked device. Packets sent out from our sniffer could look to the LAN, switches, routers, etc. just like they had come from the piggybacked device. In fact, no reason we couldn't do this during the daytime. Our sniffer would watch for reply packets comming to our MAC and IP address to one of OUR port numbers, and just not relay those packets thru to the piggybacked device whose connection we're leaching from.
Okay, maybe this shouldn't have a "hub", but should really be an embedded computer with TWO ethernet ports. It's normal function is to "transparently" bridge all packets between the two so that it is invisible "inline".
I sure wish such an inline sniffer could be truly small so that it literally could go "inline" between two ethernet cables, connecting them together. But the price of such equipment isn't there yet for most of us.
Another problem that I touched on above is how to power such a device. I mentioned the possibility of battery power. This is fine if you don't want a permanent "bug" in someone's network.
Better is to somehow power it from utility power. A small AC adapter? A very tiny switching power supply on the sniffer's circuit board so that you just use aligator clips to hook into 110v power, such as in some light fixture in the suspended ceiling? (You still need battery backup for "lights off" hours.) Well, maybe just the insides of an AC adapter bolted to your board, with alligator clips for 110v power. Again, the price and ease of construction is right for those of us without NSA style budgets.
I wish I could buy some of the NSA's packet sniffers from ThinkGeek.
Another problem is how does the device communicate to its master? IRC is one possibility. Instant messaging? P2P? What about a P2P that is bandwidth friendly like OpenNap? The device connects to a server, offers several bizzarre files to upload. When one of those files is uploaded, that triggers it to search for and then "download" a file of new commands or firmware. When a different file is requested for upload, the sniffer yields up its booty. Besides IRC or OpenNap, the device could pretend to visit certian web sites. Various URL's of the web site would secretly communicate "bits" of steganographic information. For instance, it visits my "slash" site. It checks the last 64 comments. Which of the 64 comments it checks, communicates a 6-bit value to the web server. Of course, once such a device is discovered, the web server might be implicated. Another possibility is to e-mail various yahoo or hotmail accounts with encrypted infor
My Fridge (Score:2, Interesting)
It might be more fun in the TV so it can keep a log of with the kids and the Spouse are watching not to mention the washing machine! [Dirty water detected, extend wash cycle (yes) (no)].
big hairy deal (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.siteplayer.com/ is the place to go.
If you cant buy the product in single quantities for a very reasonable price, then it's not worth messing with.
-1 Misinformed: $100 to use that $30 module (Score:5, Insightful)
$130 vs $50. SitePlayer is far more expensive and far less attractive as far as the packaging.
Ben
Re:big hairy deal (Score:4, Interesting)
Not exactly comparable, yeah the siteplayer has some features.
item SP Xport
D i/o 8 3
RAM 768B 256KB
flash 48Kb 385KB
Also the Xport includes the ethernet filter/magnetics and (Optionally) offers AES encryption, good feature if you want to use this for support on anything remotely critical.
Not a webserver (Score:3, Informative)
At least, that's what it's targetted at; an addition to an existing embedded system. I don't think you could just write a backdoor and stick it on a network and expect it to work. Probably not enough memory/CPU capacity for that sort of thing...
Yes it is a web server (Score:5, Informative)
Although it is smaller than your thumb, the XPort contains all of the hardware and software required to Web-enable any device, including:
10Base-T/100Base-TX auto-sensing Ethernet connection
Mature, robust operating system
Embedded HTTP-compliant Web server
Programmable e-mail alerts
Extensive networking protocol suite including full TCP/IP stack
128-bit AES Rijndael encryption
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes it is a web server (Score:3, Informative)
I suspect those specs are good enough to max out the ethernet connection, under normal circumstances.
I don't know what you mean by "stand-alone mode". From reading the product description, I can see no reason why you couldn't just plug it into an existing network and have it start serving pages, if that is what you m
A House of Cables... (Score:5, Funny)
I can just picture Old Man Stevens handing his wife a juicer for her birthday. Old Lady Stevens lets out a little sigh and grabs a crimper and a spool of Cat5.
FIGHT THE FUTURE!
Re:A House of Cables... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A House of Cables... (Score:2)
Hrmmmm (Score:2)
Sounds like an experience I had about 10 years ago.. I blew the removable flash bios chip on a motherboard. :( So after calling manufacturers all over the place, I managed to find one that sold the chips in qtys' of one.
"Great!", I thought. "This will be easy."
Two weeks later, and some after some head-scratching, I realized I was the
Re:Hrmmmm (Score:2)
There are some good bios rescue techniques. There's an Open BIOS flashing project, if you're interested then I can get you the URL. Worked to flash upgrade my BIOS where the original MoBo mfr tool didn't work, and has some pretty cool other options too.
cool (Score:5, Funny)
But cables are so 2002! (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is fine, but the REAL killer device will be an embeddable, commodity-level wireless interface--whether 802.11 or its successor--paired with ubiquitous wireless access, at least on par with current digital cell service. I estimate we're only a few years away from the latter, and the former is already more or less available in the PCMCIA form factor.
When my toaster oven can download Pop-Tart-warming instructions from its manufacturer's web
Pulls over 200 mills! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pulls over 200 mills! (Score:5, Informative)
Stealth... (Score:2, Interesting)
What this could really use is a pass-through ethernet hub built into the device, so that you can drop it in-line with a cable in place of some existing connecter...
Re:Stealth... (Score:2)
I'm demanding my boss order me a developer kit.
HTTP - Nice and Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell Me Something (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you can plug a webserver into anything that happens to have an existing RJ45 port, but what use would that be? (Just what I've always wanted... a web server that I can plug into my laptop so I can browse the web at a blazing 300k/sec.)
I want to net-enable my car. Someone tell me how this RJ45 device will allow that. My car doesn't even have an RJ45 port...
Re:Tell Me Something (Score:3, Informative)
Question (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it?
Everyone keeps talking about how you can hook up your toaster, coffee maker, etc. Do these devices have a serial port?
How would one interface with any of these kind of devices unless they had some sort of output interface?
I can see where these might work well with older legacy devices(printers, etc), and you want to be able put them on a network, but I fail to see how they would help in your home.
Enlightment anyone?
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting)
You could put these things in drink kiosks so that they can email you when they're almost out of Dr. Pepper.
I can't see why you'd want one in a toaster, though...
Re:Question (Score:2)
I'd be more interested in having web based interfaces to my Tivo, TV, stereo and other home theater stuff. I think the toaster example is not intended to be taken seriously.
I tried to come up with a "cereal" port joke, but just couldn't. Sorry.
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
However, as a home user, you could bash together something with these. Say you have an electronic thermometer that has a serial output. Attach one of these doodads and voila! You now have a web-enabled thermomemter. Stick it in the toaster. Now your toaster is web-enabled! (err... sorta) I can't think of many common appliances around that have serial ports on them. I guess my TiVo is the only one I can think of, that I own.
These are aimed at the manufacturer of the thermometer, however. They could take the existing design that has a serial port, add in one of these modules, and release their new iThermometer that's networkable, at a low engineering cost. They can probably tag $100 onto the price, easily swallowing the $33/module cost and making themselves a nice profit in addition. There's tons of industrial equipment out there that has serial ports, which means they need to be within 30 feet or so of a PC. With these, you can have a whole network of machines tying into a single PC which is capable of monitoring an entire factory.
I suspect any manufacturer of actual web-enabled coffeemakers, toasters, etc. would skip the serial interface (and $33 overhead) and instead just get some off-the-shelf integrated TCI/IP chip.
Personally, I'd love to get one of these things and web-enable my old Apple
Hacked my toaster ! (Score:2, Funny)
That's not a 16 port hub (Score:5, Funny)
Automated home (Score:2, Insightful)
Web server? Who needs a web server? (Score:2)
In perspective.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The size is a big factor but there are already full blown devices that can do far more then this and are cheaper. Take a look at some DSL/Cable routers. Siemens sells one that is a 10/100 4 port switch, web interface and control, printer port, firewall, etc... for $19 and $28 [officedepot.com]. Many SMC barricades and Linksys models are going for under $40. These devices might not fit into a toaster but I know they could be made smaller. I know comparing these to the articles product is not apples to apples but there are cheaper and more robust web and network enabled devices already out on the street.
Sounds like a great new way to make a Dongle :-( (Score:3, Informative)
They are available in quantities below 10,000 (Score:4, Informative)
Non cynical post (Score:3, Interesting)
Typical - someone fits an entire web server into the space of an RJ45 socket, including socket space, and the top ten posts go on about what a waste of time it is! Personally, I think its great, and although I wouldn't expect toasters with this thing any time soon, it would be ideal for wiring factory equipment and such like with remote diagnostics (I get the impression this is the market they are aiming for). I think it would be massively improved if they could fit a wifi interface into the space wasted by the RJ45 socket, though. Then it might have realistic household applications.
Their development methodology [commanderx.com] is out to lunch though!
I can see these being used in cars for diagnostics (Score:3, Insightful)
These will also be huge in medical equipment.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine being able to check on the temparature of your fridge over the internet. Even install a web cam inside it. Check what groceries you need from work.
Pow. Cheep, web enabled fridge.
The only problem would be script kiddies. I 0wnzers your cuccumber man
Re:I'm wondering (Score:2)
How about eatable RFID embedded in food, someone ?
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about edible, but I do like this idea; for most fruit, you could embed the tag in the skin, for example. I'd actually really like to be able to get a list of stuff in the fridge, be warned when something's approaching the eat-by date...
Better still: some RFID tags have sensors in. A simple Perl script could track a shopping list for me, and either order replacements online or be synced to a PDA for shopping. Maybe even couple it with a Pricewatch-type site, so I know which supermarket would be cheapest for that particular list; work out what recipe I could make, or what I'd need to add.
Alternatively - if this device can do 300 Kbit/sec in this version, how about cable-modem/ADSL routers? Up the bandwidth a bit, it would handle the load OK; as it is, it could make a nice easy dialup router. $33 with a serial port - add a simple modem, and you have the ultimate plug+play ISP: one end in the phone socket, the other in the NIC, and it's all preconfigured!
Proof at last! (Score:5, Funny)
That would be SO cool! I'd finally be able to get the PROOF of the existance of the little guy who turns on and off the light in my fridge!
ethernet sensor? I do it all serial NOW, cheaper! (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, it's just not.
At $30/pop, yes, handy for things that cost $600+ that might want ethernet (it's still 5%, so up that even more until it's 2-3%).
It's a serial-> ethernet device. For $30/port, serial is cheaper.
Want to monitor a fridge? There are a billion devices that can read temp over serial devices.
Wanna do a hole house? Scatter around some microcontrollers.
PIC and many others make c
Not as funny as it sounds. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as embedded systems goes, this is an order of magnitude or so too expensive. Manufacturers pinch pennies on even larger items like TV's, as each dollar increase in cost translates into something like $5 to the consumer, and potentially millions to the bottom line.
Frankly, this technology isn't even appropriate anyway. For something more in line with the applications you are thinking about, look here [echelon.com] where the technology is already imbedded in millions of consumer devices.
Re:I'm wondering (Score:2)
Stuff like air conditioning/heating control units, media stuff like VCRs, PVRs, etc, and of course, lightswitches and power outlets to make those damn X-10 modules (and their popups) obsolete.
N.
They'd make great controllers.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything embeddable sells in tens of thousands. Stationary computers are the least produced computer type. Just imagine all microcontrollers in VCRs for example. I'd say that there are far more than 10000 VCRs sold each year. Now embedd a webserver into each VCR, so that you can program the timer over your private LAN. Thats a possible 10000 units. Now put the same protocol in your digital TV reciever/decoder to change channels, update codes, subscribe to PPV shows etc. and let the VCR change the channel of the decoder and you've got another 10k units.
10k is a small number in the embedded world.
Now, for the real price:. html
"The list price of the XPort is $49.00. Discount pricing on the XPort is also available in volumes of ten thousand."
according to http://www.lantronix.com/news/pr/2003/02-24-xport
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Informative)
to web enable them for much less money than this part - like $3 for a single chip ethernet interface.
Think of a webcam or something where you take that part, this [ic-media.com], and bingo, webcam, front-door intercom, etc. Considering the price of similar items on the market, this still seems very expensive for lower-end applications.
Re:I'm wondering (Score:5, Interesting)
The price is a bit high still, but there is a lot of equipment where $33 extra a unit would not scare customers away.
Re:I'm wondering (Score:2, Funny)
add another, hack with the tcpip stack, and your fridge is now a router!
Re:I'm wondering (Score:2)
Soft drink and snack machines, Scanners in factories, traffic counters, any equipment that that you want to query remotely to see if it is operating.
Re:I'm wondering (Score:2)
I don't suppose there's 2000 other people out there thinking the same thing, are there? . . .
imagine the possibilities (Score:2, Interesting)
And you could also make one wireless... I think the only thing limiting you could be power consumption. But having a wall wart plugged into one of these under somebody's desk- that seems doable.
Re:I am not a cynic... I am not a cynic... I am no (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think the actual chips/integration-scale is news at all, people are just finding applications (read: places to put) them.
Re:I know I'm gonna get flamed for this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then don't think of fridges think of ovens. DL a new recipe and the oven will take care of all the temperature adjustments and timing you just put your food in and press 'GO'.
The applications are only limited by your imagination.
Re:Cool, this would solve the web server on the pl (Score:2)
Actually, couldn't they just have a webserver on board, and cache several sites, like news sites, etc. People wouldn't be able to browse the internet, but they would be able to browse something. That doesn't allow people to email, but i
Re:Scam (Score:4, Informative)