Web Server Packed into RJ45 Connector

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

[RudeDude]

Just in case: The PDF review doc [mrhostbot.com]

They'd make great controllers..

[caveat]

..for cheap home electronic devices you might want to web-enable (i.e. tell the 100-DVD jukebox to have the following playlist ready when you get home, have the fridge print you out dinner recipies, blah blah blah), but with 512kb of flash for the web pages and a (relatively) slow interface, they certainly wouldn't be useful for serving (and they aren't really being sold as such, despite what the tagline says - the PDF [commanderx.com] mentions serving, but the main push seems to be monitoring & control..good idea for something like this).

The article (I hate PDF)

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultra-Small Server Web-Enables Any System Providing access to a LAN or the Internet, a Web server squeezed in an RJ45 connector shroud packs a full TCP/IP stack and OS. As companies trim labor overheads, they~Rre looking to fill the void with remote diagnostics, maintenance, and data collection. One method is to Web-enable more systems to use the Internet and World Wide Web to collect data and diagnose or control systems. Webenabling typically meant adding a local-area network (LAN) interface, a controller, a software transmission- control-protocol/Internet-protocol (TCP/IP) stack, and other circuitry and software. Now, all that has been squeezed into the basic RJ-45 connector shroud (0.64 in. by 0.57 in. by 1.34 in.), which would typically be soldered to the pc board. All the circuit design and pc-board space the LAN circuitry requires is now eliminated. The Lantronix DSTni-XPort lets designers without any LAN/Internet experience create Internet-ready systems in minutes. Within the connector shroud, the DSTni-XPort packs the company~Rs DSTni-LX (an 80186-based controller), a 2-kbyte boot ROM, 256 kbytes of SRAM, 512 kbytes of flash memory, a 10/100 autosensing Ethernet transceiver, a high-speed serial port, three programmable I/O pins, bicolor LEDs for diagnostics, the LAN interface magnetics, and a full TCP/IP network stack and operating system (OS) . Thus, the XPort delivers a full device server in the space consumed by only the connector. Designed to operate from a 3.3- V supply, the XPort functions from -40C to 85C. It costs about $33 each in 10,000-unit lots. Lantronix Inc. www.lantronix.com [phone]

Not a webserver

[merlin_jim]

I didn't see where this is a full webserver. The documentation seemed to indicate that it's a TCP/IP handler. You put serial data in one side and TCP/IP network packets come out the other side.

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...

Re:I'm wondering

[walt-sjc]

Any sane manufacturer is not going to add a $33 part to a $70 VCR. This is completely the wrong application. Frankly, VCR's already have a decent enough CPU
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:Scam

[nochops]

Where does it say that the device is running Windows? All I could find is that there's a Windows based configuration utility, and a Windows based com port redirector.

Yes it is a web server

[IWannaBeAnAC]

From the product description link, helpfully included in the main story...

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:Question

[jmacleod9975]

I don't know much about this. But your question makes sense to me. I mean I own a toaster and hooking up a webserver to it would be pretty pointless because my toaster does not have a little computer with AtoD converters to keep track of the temperature or little electronic switches to control whether the toast pops up. It is all analog and mechanical. So for this to be useful in my toaster I would need to also have a little embedded controller with sensors and activators and stuff. I think it will be much more complicated and expensive than sticking one of these in my toaster.

Re:Question

[Croaker]

You'd need additional hardware to wire up something like a toaster, which itself generally doesn't have electronics in it. Web enabling your toaster is a bit of hyperbole.

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 //c (although this particular model is a bit pokey at 300 baud).

Re:Not that big of a downside...

[Radical Rad]

Actually it tops out at 230kbps. The range is listed as 300-230k bps in the product brief.

manufacturers dont sell 1 by 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Most manufacturers sell by the thousands (or tens or even hundreds of thousands) to wholesalers, who sell by the hundreds or thousands to retailers, who then themselves actually sell one by one to the end user.

There is your answer to, "What you say?!? Who would buy 10,000?" which everyone keeps asking.

That is not unlike expecting Fyffes to send you an individual banana direct to your home from South America.

Re:Pulls over 200 mills!

[Matt_Bennett]

You're going to have a hard time doing a 100Mbit interface that is truly "low power." With 100Mbit, there is always something going over the link, putting +/- 1V over a 100 ohm load, counting inefficiences, you're probably at 40 mA just to support the TX portion of the PHY. Then you have to realize that you need a 125 MHz clock going on inside-and that's all before you have a MAC and a processor going. Ethernet (particularly 100Mb) is not a low power interface.

Fieldbus technology

[phrantic]

Factory automation has been involved with web enabling control processes for several years, albeit with less focus on web based goodies and more on the actual control of distributed peripherals.
In the good old days control of an Auto plant, chemical plant, anything at all that required PLC (programmable logic controllers), all of the i/o was driven by units that attached directly to the PLC-CPU unit. This was all very well but from there you then had to run power cables the tens of metres to whatever valves or motor you wanted to control, the routing of power cables is more strictly regulated that data cables.
Some bright spark came up with the idea that if you distributed the i/o placing it right beside the motor or whatever and ran a high speed communication link over data lines this would be eaiser to manage. Things got more interesting when you add the web to the equation, and some of the big guns toyed with the idea of serving java applets allowing centrally located controllers to download the applets that visualised and controlled the remote (anything from metres to 1000's of Kilometres) equipment and to control it from there.

The draw back to this is that if it is on the web then there is subject to attacked, by iraqi's or script kiddies.

Sounds like a great new way to make a Dongle :-(

[bobgap]

Nuf said.

Corrections

[operagost]

- The serial interface maxes out at 230 Kbps, not 300. In that way it would appear to be comparable to a 16650 class UART. But ...
- Who cares? For an industrial control application, a device requiring more than 230 Kbps to sample data is rare. As fot the ethernet, it's 10/100 autosensing. I would expect the 80186 CPU to be the bottleneck before the I/O.

Re:Automated home

[Anonymous Coward]

Logging the doorbell is easy. I did it for a number of years, since the infrastructure was already in place.

1. Run wire from doorbell to X-10 "burglar alarm interface" transmitter

2. Plug in X-10 computer interface

3. Write code to listen to X-10 signals and call external things (shell scripts, anyone?)

4. Write a shell script to do whatever

In my case, #4 threw some data at sendmail, and I heard the doorbell on my pager. I could hear that doorbell ring anywhere in the state as a result.

Steps #1 and #2 had already been done for other reasons - 'hearing' the doorbell downstairs where the original bell wouldn't reach. The rest was obvious.

They are available in quantities below 10,000

[cvanhorn]

According to their website here: http://www.lantronix.com/news/pr/2003/02-24-xport. html [lantronix.com] they are available in single unit quantities for $49.00.

Re:Yes it is a web server

[IWannaBeAnAC]

From the product brief, the CPU is a 48MHz x86-compatible with 256KB SRAM and 512KB Flash RAM. It will run telnet, so I guess you can connect to it and run programs on it in the usual way.

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 mean. The intention is clearly to interact with some other device through the serial interface though.

free embedded webserver

[Anonymous Coward]

The GoAhead WebServer is a free, embedded webserver [12.129.4.11] which runs in about 200KB. It supports ASP, SSL, and a bunch of other things.

Re:Tell Me Something

[drinkypoo]

If you have the know-how, which is to say, you are capable of putting something in between this device's serial interface, and the serial interface on your car (OBD-I, OBD-II, CAM A, CAM B, CAM C) then you can net-enable your car. If you are not capable of building a little computer to do that, or grafting this onto an existing little computer which speaks the appropriate protocol, and such devices do exist, or writing software to run on the xport's operating system, then you probably cannot make it happen.

However: If you can find a device which speaks CAM or OBD or whatever and sends the codes out over a serial line, which is actually highly likely, then you probably would only have to write software, and add a DC-DC power supply and a serial connector to the xport, and plug it in. This is so trivial that any person capable of working on auto electrical (if you are not, you have not tried, or you are handicapped) should be able to do it. Consider: The device provides a 3-wire serial port capable of speeds up to 230kbps. (While the number 300kbps has been kicked around, the PDF spec sheet clearly says 230.) It says it will do hardware handshaking, and that it has three user configurable pins. At this point it seems to me that if you want to do hardware handshaking, you won't get to use those pins for something else. I'm looking for documentation which will make this more clear. Bah, I give up, I don't think they have a data sheet available, just marketing literature.

ethernet sensor? I do it all serial NOW, cheaper!

[MrChuck]

I'm reading these and it's like this is the first device that could make temperature reading possible.

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 chips that have serial, talk a little programming and have things like digital IO or 12 A/Ds.

Put one in each room - they fit in an outlet box with room to spare.
Wire up sensors:

• one reads light levels (along with time of day and other sensors, central computing can decide that the light is on, or it's just sunny).
• some for TEMP (LM34/LM35's are the expensive option, but easy) -- one in the fridge, one at waist level for the room, one outside
• humidity

Digital IO can:

• tell you if outlets are on with decent circuit work
• tell if an (internal, see below) door is open or changes state
• tell you if someone steps on the carpet (in the bathroom at 7AM so it knows to turn the coffee on).
• control smart sockets (X10 is barely smart).
• read a simple button push, unlock an internal door (below), can read the chip in your neck to see that you are now in the room (you know about the chip, right :), whatever.

(It's a bad plan for burlar alarm functions, you want those run separately)

The Controller is "taught" what type of sensor is on each input, it reads the values, actions may have it talk (96kb is more than fast enough) down a CAT3 or 5 to the central computer. This wire may also power it.

Perhaps a temp threshold (high/low/change rate) triggers a report.
Perhaps it just reports every N seconds (N=120 is still lots of useless data)
Perhaps it also has OUTPUT. But it has little intelligence.

Central computing can also "read" the burglar alarm and know that you just entered (it was your code), it's dark out and cold, it's dinner time, so it can turn on a couple lights, spit a message to your (serial) LCD in the hall with messages (your girlf is leaving you cause you leave the seat up and work on your computer too much and why the hell can't she turn on the damn lights like a normal person!).

Central computer gets ethernet. Runs with no disk (flash boot), doesn't do much else. It can talk to a Real Computer that has the MP3s, etc.
Central computer might just be a general MicroController, but it's taking 20 different serial connections in (232? or I2O or shared RS232 with a protocol (Device A: Read Sensor B @ value 116 becomes ASCII "AB00000116". or something). ASCII makes life easier, packets longer).

For $30, I can get the PIC chip ($55 with basic to program it) and run 4 conducter alarm wire along a room (push it into drywall, spackle).

For $30 at Q10,000, I want bluetooth or 802.11{a,b,g,i} and IPv6 and IPSec.

Want all the serials to be ethernet instead and go into a 16 port hub? HUB: $100, 6x$30 for these: adds $280 plus development (at 10k rates).

For the CAT5, I might as well stick with the serial. Let one machine agreggate the data and offer it over the network.

Re:-1 Misinformed: $100 to use that $30 module

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be the one who is misinformed.

1. The Siteplayer SDK includes a module.
2. Does the xPort include a hardware SDK?
3. The price for Siteplayer in quantity is $20.
4. You only need zero or 1 SDK's, either case.
You don't need one per module.

Main difference between Siteplayer and xPort is that xPort includes the RJ connector + magnetics.

Siteplayer has more general-purpose IO pins, but its serial port tops out at 115K (xPort is 230K).

Re:The article (I hate PDF)

[mmol_6453]

According to the product's home page, the component is designed for embedded applications, not for being a standalone web server. It's intended as a means of remotely serving up diagnostics information over TCP/IP. It's not sophisticated enough to be an http server.