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Date:      Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:45:39 -0500
From:      "John Telford" <j.telford@sympatico.ca>
To:        "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, "Andrew Hesford" <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx>
Cc:        <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: What name brand would you buy for a firewall/router ?
Message-ID:  <001e01c0b282$8fd4bb70$3f37e540@johnny2k>
References:  <006e01c0b1cc$3c563020$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>

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Thanks for the input folks,
I'll take a closer look at the trade ins I just got and grab whats in the
best shape.
Here's a thought, load it up and also leave a configured PicoBSD floppy on
site in case the HDD craps out. Perhaps have one of their workstations with
a second NIC in it, in case the whole box dies, they boot with the PicoBSD
and they are back on-line in emergency mode while I send out a replacement.
Hey, did a light just go on here <g>.

Ted, I was on an install job last week and went for a coffee at the closest
place, a Chapters store and there sitting out on a shelf was your book, not
even in the computer section. I took it as a good omen and picked it up.

Regards, John.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To: "Andrew Hesford" <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx>; "John Telford"
<j.telford@sympatico.ca>
Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 1:00 AM
Subject: RE: What name brand would you buy for a firewall/router ?


> I've actually found that 486/33's and 486/25's are quite
> satisfactory at acting as simple Ethernet-to-Ethernet routers.
>
> In fact, at my home here I have a 386/25 EISA box with
> 2 SMC8013 ethernet cards in it and I can pass 3.5Mbt through
> this for hours without trouble.  This is with a 10BaseT
> nic in a Celeron that can run the Ethernet at 9Mbt if no
> other devices are talking.
>
> The great thing about the 486's is that the CPU's don't have
> to be fan-cooled so there's one more failure point gone,
> and they use less power, generate less heat, and as a
> result last a lot longer.  The downside is finding 500Mbt
> disk drives for them.
>
> Ted Mittelstaedt                      tedm@toybox.placo.com
> Author of:          The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
> Book website:         http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Andrew Hesford
> >Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 9:38 PM
> >To: John Telford
> >Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> >Subject: Re: What name brand would you buy for a firewall/router ?
> >
> >
> >If you want a box to push packets, go to a flea market or your favorite
> >source for old hardware, and buy an old Dell Dimension P100. If you
> >like, you can substitute the words "Dell Dimension P100" with the
> >name of your (boss's) choice.
> >
> >I won't buy a Celeron on principle. A PIII is overkill extraordinaire if
> >you're just jockeying packets. Get something in the 100-200 MHz range,
> >which should go for less than $200 today.
> >
> >Naturally you will want PCI slots, since all the good NICs are PCI
> >cards.
> >
> >I've got a diskless, videoless Dimension XPS P90c that runs PicoBSD. It
> >does NAT, port forwarding, and packet filtering. I couldn't be happier.
> >Cheap, quiet, easy. And I don't feel like I'm wasting a good processor,
> >since I can't think of a better use for a 90 MHz Pentium.
> >
> >On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 12:31:37AM -0500, John Telford wrote:
> >> If the boss said "stop using those old cast offs for FreeBSD
> >> firewalls/routers and buy a name brand"
> >> What's out there right now that would be worth looking at and avoiding.
> >> Dell, IBM, Compaq ? Processor Celeron, PIII, AMD ?
> >> Thanks in advance, John.
> >>
> >>
> >> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> >> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
> >--
> >Andrew Hesford
> >ajh3@chmod.ath.cx
> >
> >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
> >
>


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