*bsd firewall appliance?

[DW]

Danial Thom wrote:
> You clowns with your diskless servers just crack
> me up. Everyone brags about their years of uptime
> on their servers, yet you just can't put up a
> firewall or router without a disk. What, are you
> still using mfm drives or something? 
>   
My motives have nothing to do with reliability; I am not philosophically 
opposed to disks or moving parts. I'm just reaching the point more often 
lately where I'm looking at:

1) Form factor (there are organizations where real estate holds almost 
as much premium as department funds).

2) Heat output (I just had 2 more 2-ton mini-split A.C. units installed 
-- that'll hold me for a while, but at the rate we're expanding, I don't 
want to be faced with a situation again where I'm looking at a box doing 
a small job like running BIND  spitting out 1,000 BTU's/hour)

3) Power consumption (why draw more than necessary?)

It seems that more and more my bottlenecks have nothing to do with 
performance or reliability, but rather physical facility management. It 
all adds up.

> --- DW <spock at dwinner.net> wrote:
>
>   
>> Philippe Lang wrote:
>>     
>>> owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Just doing some early morning brainstorming,
>>>>         
>> and my crazy thought of
>>     
>>>> the day is this: 
>>>>
>>>> My life would be so much easier if I could
>>>>         
>> just get rid of my
>>     
>>>> stupid PIX firewalls, and replace them what
>>>>         
>> I know and love:
>>     
>>>> FreeBSD. It's not that the PIX's have been
>>>>         
>> causing me
>>     
>>>> problems or anything like that, it's just
>>>>         
>> that I believe in
>>     
>>>> streamlining whenever possible, and since
>>>>         
>> we've already
>>     
>>>> exterminated Microsoft in my server room for
>>>>         
>> at least 3
>>     
>>>> years, the only thing left that's not
>>>>         
>> running FreeBSD are my
>>     
>>>> appliances (firewalls and switches) and 2
>>>>         
>> leftover legacy
>>     
>>>> servers still running Redhat that haven't
>>>>         
>> been worth the
>>     
>>>> effort to migrate to FreeBSD. I'm a one-man
>>>>         
>> shop, and I can
>>     
>>>> survive using the PIX IOS when I have to,
>>>>         
>> but would just as
>>     
>>>> soon use BSD if I could. Questions:
>>>>
>>>> 1) If I did this, I would probably only do
>>>>         
>> it if I could
>>     
>>>> figure out how to rack up some diskless
>>>>         
>> servers to my 2-post
>>     
>>>> communications rack. Any thoughts on
>>>>         
>> hardware candidates, etc.?
>>     
>>>> 2) If I did this, maybe it would be wiser to
>>>>         
>> go with OpenBSD
>>     
>>>> instead, since it is known for security?
>>>>
>>>> 3) Any good tutorials on setting up a
>>>>         
>> diskless servers for
>>     
>>>> Free/OpenBSD? 
>>>>
>>>> 4) Any other considerations?
>>>>
>>>> 5) Am I just being stupid and should I just
>>>>         
>> keep my PIX's
>>     
>>>> going? I know, I know, if it ain't broke,
>>>>         
>> don't fix it.
>>     
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Maybe a good start for you would be to have a
>>>       
>> look at http://www.m0n0.ch/wall/.
>>     
>>>   
>>>       
>> WOW!!!!!! This is exactly what I was looking
>> for and more! Can't wait to 
>> start trying it out! Thanks!
>>
>>
>>     
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> ---------------
>>> Philippe Lang
>>> Attik System
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
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>
>
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