From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 13 09:54:00 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D399F16A4DF for ; Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:54:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from spock@dwinner.net) Received: from outbound-mail-19.bluehost.com (outbound-mail-19.bluehost.com [70.98.111.234]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6F4B943D4C for ; Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:54:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from spock@dwinner.net) Received: (qmail 851 invoked by uid 0); 13 Jul 2006 09:53:50 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO box122.bluehost.com) (67.106.44.122) by mailproxy1.bluehost.com with SMTP; 13 Jul 2006 09:53:50 -0000 Received: from c-69-142-142-207.hsd1.nj.comcast.net ([69.142.142.207] helo=[192.168.1.103]) by box122.bluehost.com with esmtpa (Exim 4.52) id 1G0xtG-0001h7-Gp for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:53:50 -0600 Message-ID: <44B61824.7030309@dwinner.net> Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 05:53:40 -0400 From: DW User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Identified-User: {731:box122.bluehost.com:dwinnern:dwinner.net} {sentby:smtp auth 69.142.142.207 authed with dwinner@dwinner.net} Subject: *bsd firewall appliance? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: spock@dwinner.net List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:54:00 -0000 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. Cheers, DW