Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 16:37:19 -0800 (PST) From: Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org> To: Nathan Mace <nmace@myrealbox.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Does this exist? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0211051636250.71087-100000@InterJet.elischer.org> In-Reply-To: <119245048150.20021105193336@myrealbox.com>
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yes.. check out tinyBSD.. cut-down FreeBSD... loads from a floppy into RAM ideal for routers, firewalls etc. On Tue, 5 Nov 2002, Nathan Mace wrote: > first of all, I'm not sure this is the proper place to be asking this, > however as far as i know this mailing list isn't restricted to a > particular subject except FreeBSD in general. > > that said, my question is this: > > Are there any open source projects out there that are working on > making a slim OS that will boot off of a CD, load itself into memory > and run from completely within RAM, and never touch a hard > drive.......now i know there are...there are several "live" Linux CD's which > do this but let me finish my question.........are there any that can > do this, and are aimed at firewall's? > > as cheap as RAM for PC's is now, why couldn't a company afford to buy > say 512* megs of ram and have a firewall that runs totally in ram and > boots from a CD-R? think about that for a second. if system got > comprised, what could the "bad guy" do? he couldn't install anything that > would last because as soon as the sys-admin discovered he was there, > they could re-boot the machine, and since it boots off of a read-only > "hard drive" you know that it hasn't been comprised, and the ram that > it uses for a temporary hard drive would be instantly formatted. granted if > someone got in once they can do it again as soon as the machine was up > and running again......but how is that any different than a machine > that runs off of a hard drive? you would still have to wait on an > update or patch. and if you had this in a production environment you > could have a dedicated machine running FreeBSD and when the patch came > out you could install the patch to that box, and then burn a new image > that was created from that OS and boom. your firewall is not upgraded > > i know that there are several Linux distro's that provide "live" cd's, > but is there anything out there that provides the functionality I've > described, be it FreeBSD or not? > > *NOTE: 512 megs was just an example. i have no idea how much ram > would be needed. > > also, can you please CC any replies to me. I'm not a member of the > mailing list > > > -- > Nathan mailto:nmace@myrealbox.com > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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