hardware ITX for firewalls etc.

[paul van den bergen]

email 1
On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 05:22 am, Francisco Reyes wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, paul van den bergen wrote:
> > You can also get CF and similar solid stat memory chips to IDE connection
> > adaptors for around AU$30...
>
> URL?
> Sounds like an interesting option for a Firewall I need to do myself very
> soon.
and
email 2
On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 05:30 am, Francisco Reyes wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, paul van den bergen wrote:
> > I have a bunch of these (8000s actually) for a testbed network.  work
> > like a treat... go fanless if you can...
>
> Where did you get them from?
> How much?
>
> > I did have some hassles with the onboard via network connection not
> > coping with long vlan tagged packets.
>
> It seems most of these mini ITX network cards have issues with FreeBSD. As
> long as I can get two PCI slots I should be fine.

reply to email 1:
I'll have to dig up the specs from a friend... but it's probably cheaper to do 
the google thing... or one of the ITX mini board sites... miniitx.com???  
there are some awesome casemods out there...  we want to get some Commador 
64s for our desktop machines... :-)

reply to email 2:
we got VIA EPIA mini ITX boards of a local supplier... (Melbourne Australia) I 
can give the details if helpful (i.e. of list and if you are local) but since 
we are a University, it is likely you will not get the same price we did :-(  
on the other hand, check out the swapmeets.... (see green guide or 
computertrader.com.au (URLspelling?) for details) 

they were around AU$220 each... the fanless is (was - this is 6 months ago or 
more) 600 MHz and the fan'd ones are 850 MHz or so...  I  expect they would 
be similar price for faster now... with more options...  people on 
melbourne.wireless.org have been talking about the impending release of a 
board with on-board PCMCIA and etc... but not sure of the SotA...

the vlan tag thing and some other bugs with the vr0 supported hardware have 
been around for a while... I suspect mostly they are fixed or well known for 
FreeBSD nowadays... the vlantag thing is a buffer size or otherwise a 
hardware support issue (i.e. not driver - as the man pages states, the vlan 
stuff can be done in software, but I have absolutely no idea what this 
involves.... anyone want to enlighten us?

ditto the dual PCI splitter - no idea where to get it just know it exists... 
also rumour (one mention of suspicion... that counts as a rumour, right?) 
that there are issues with the dual pci thing... not sure what though... 
still, they're cheap... sub au$50?? maybe?

I imagine a quick check of some of the mod-sites will show some interesting 
board configs...  I suspect you can get dual PCI slot versions too.

OK, here is my bookmark collection on hardware mods etc...
pc104, review sites and itx sites...

http://www.tri-m.com/
http://accpc.com/submicropc.htm
http://www.littlepc.com/
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/index.jsp
http://www.mini-itx.com/
http://www.tomshardware.com
http://www.dansdata.com/
http://www.motherboards.org/
http://www.routerboard.com/
http://www.kontron.com/products/pdproductdetail.cfm?keyProduct=32980
http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/index.html
http://www.freeswan.org/
http://leaf.sourceforge.net/

there are likely others, but that's what I have atm... :-)

the last few are Open Source router/AP/firewall thingies... there are also 
sites around with FreeBSD (well, BSD) based implementations that are 
similarly compact cheap and reliable :-)  good luck... and remember google is 
your friend...

--

Dr Paul van den Bergen
Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures
caia.swin.edu.au
pvandenbergen at swin.edu.au
IM:bulwynkl2002
"And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones 
to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. 
They say it is to see how the world was made."
Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824