Background

 

In an effort to deliver the best products to our customers, Digi is transitioning from WR Series cellular routers that use the SarOS operating system to IX Series cellular routers that use the DAL operating system. Since introducing our first DAL-based Industrial Series (IX) product in 2018, the IX14, we have subsequently introduced the IX10, IX15, IX20, LR54, TX54, and TX64 that also use DAL. SarOS is a 20+ year old operating system that has reached its technology limitations. DAL is a proven, enterprise grade router operating system with improved security and stability, and based on Linux that DIGI has been using on our Enterprise (EX) Series for many years.

Below is a short list of DAL features and functionality that expand the capabilities of SarOS based products:
 

IPv6 Support	LDAP user authentication
Dual APN (aka split-tunnel connectivity)	WAN load-balancing
Automatic APN search (Zero Touch Provisioning)	Ability to run native Linux applications
Improvements to DIGI SureLinkTM	Common UX with unified platform, across EX, TX, and IX product lines
Secure Boot and other DIGI TrustFenceTM features	Improved Wi-Fi Client and AP support

See table below for list of affected part numbers and recommended replacements.

• WR11XT and WR21-MxxB have equivalent IX product replacements.
• WR21-R products utilize GSM-R and are sold in Europe. GSM-R is an older technology and Digi is discontinuing new product availability with GSM-R. The modem for the WR21-R32A-DE1-TB is no longer available.

Product Line	EOL Part Numbers	Recommended Replacement
WR11XT	WR11-L700-DE1-XB WR11-M300-DE1-XB WR11-M400-DE1-XB WR11-M600-DE1-XB WR11-M900-DE1-XB	IX10-00G4
WR21	WR21-M52B-DE1-SB WR21-M72B-DE1-SB WR21-R52A-DE1-TB WR21-R32A-DE1-TB	IX20-00G4 or IX20-00N4

All remaining WR44R products are being replaced by a more capable TX54 product line.
 

Product Line	SKU	Upgrade to
WR44R	WR44-L900-AE1-RF	TX54-A106  or TX54-A146
	WR44-L9F1-AE1-RF
	WR44-M2F1-NE1-RF
	WR44-M700-CE1-RF
	WR44-M800-AE1-RF
	WR44-M8F1-AE1-RF
	WR44-U5A3-D15-XD

 
 

Differences between WR-series vs IX- and TX- series firmware

 

The following is a list of key feature differences between the SarOS firmware that runs on WR11/WR21/WR31/WR44R/WR44RR products versus the new DAL firmware that runs on IX10/IX20/IX14/TX54/TX64/TX64 5G Rail products and additional Digi cellular routers.

Meet the Digi Accelerated Linux Operating System

= supported

  = not supported

  = coming in a future firmware release

Feature	SarOS	DAL
IPv6 support (dual-stack, cellular, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, VPN, Surelink tests)	(Ethernetonly)
Dual APN (aka split-tunnel) connectivity
Automatic APN search (Zero Touch Provisioning)
Improvements to DIGI SureLinkTM
Secure Boot and other DIGI TrustFenceTM features
WAN load-balancing
Ability to run native Linux applications and shell scripts
Common UX with unified platform, across EX, TX, and IX product lines
Firewall zones
Cisco Umbrella web content filtering
NTP authentication/broadcast
Serial AT modem emulation
Serial to multiple outbound TCP hosts with a configurable socket ID		(supports multiple UDP hosts)
Multiple/concurrent inbound TCP connections to serial port(s)
Web based serial access
Digi RealPort
DIA python framework
Wi-Fi bridged client
Wi-Fi roaming and background scanning
Wi-Fi WPA3 encryption
PPTP tunnels
L2TP tunnels
Send GRE keepalives		auto-responds to GRE keepalives
Stateful route inspection inspect protocol-layer traffic flowing through device and take Surelink-like actions		packet analyzer available, along with custom firewall scripting
Install python modules via pip

 

 

Resources

Below is a conversion tool for translating a WR-series configuration into configuring a IX- and TX- series router:

Digi Router Migration Tool - SarOS to DAL

If you require assistance with a single configuration section or are having an issue in configuring your new Digi IX- and TX- series router, please contact Digi Tech Support. Support personnel will be able to provide guidance on setup and configuration.

If you need more extensive configuration assistance and migration support, Digi's Professional Services team can provide a quote for services. Professional Services offers the ability to build a full working DAL configuration from your current router's setup. Also, we can assist in implementation, provide application development, as well as site surveys and recommendations for successful deployment.
 

Disclaimers

• The DAL OS on IX- and TX- series routers utilizes python version 3, whereas SarOS on WR-series routers utilizes python version 2. Any custom python scripts written for WR-series devices will need to be updated and likely rewritten in order for them to operate properly on python3

  • Porting Python 2 Code to Python 3 — Python 3.9.5 documentation

  • List of Digi-specific python modules included in SarOS vs DAL

    SarOS	DAL
    digicanbus digihw digij1708 digilicense digilock digisms digiwdog digiweb sarcli saros sarutils	_cc ain cli datapoint device_request dio led location name sms speedtest xbee

 

• The DAL OS includes an updated web UI and CLI. Both will have a new look, updated functionality, and more modern operations compared to the CLI and web UI of the WR-series products.

• The datastreams and health metrics reported by the IX- and TX- series products to Digi Remote Manager will have a different format and path than the datastreams reported to DigiRM. This will impact any alarms or notifications you’ve setup based on the datastreams from your devices. You will need to setup new alarms that trigger off of the new datastreams coming from the IX- and TX- series routers