Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 18:20:50 -0500 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Steve Brown <freebsd@prayforwind.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Can FreeBSD do this... Message-ID: <02022518205000.01642@proxy.pt.com> In-Reply-To: <20020225225248.HDT27257.tomts11-srv.bellnexxia.net@there> References: <20020225225248.HDT27257.tomts11-srv.bellnexxia.net@there>
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On Monday 25 February 2002 17:52, Steve Brown wrote: > Hi there, > > Someone I know works in a small office (7 Wintels), they are looking for a > file/print server and internet gateway. Just to get a general idea, should > they > > a) consider a (Netgear or equiv) broadband router whose wan side is on > internet and one machine behind it is a FreeBSD machine running Samba > (file/print sharing is what Samba's for, right?) -OR- > > b) the FreeBSD machine acts as a gateway as well, no BB router? Can it do > this and file/print serving? > > Decent security required (sensitive personal info involved, but no > e-commerce). > > The proposal they've been offered involves a BB router, everyone behind it, > including a Win2000 server. This would involve $1700 to Microsoft for > licences. Would it be worth it to use an opensource solution or would it > cost more than that for them to pay someone to figure out how to do it with > FreeBSD? I've set these kind of things up and it would cost a good bit less to do it with FreeBSD than $1700 in software. Setting this stuff up in FreeBSD isn't terribly difficult, a competent sysadmin can do it in an afternoon. You have 3 basic costs: Hardware: about the same, FreeBSD or MS, although FreeBSD will normally perform the same on less powerful hardware Software: $1700 for MS, $0 for FreeBSD Setup time: Probably about the same cost for either FreeBSD or MS, except the FreeBSD system will work reliably for quite a while, while I've never seen a Windows system that would run in this capacity for any length of time without handholding from the sysadmin. It should be possible, but I've never seen it (I think it's a problem with the Windows sysadmins more than Windows itself) Hell, if you installed the base system and plugged it into the internet, I could ssh in and configure the whole thing the next day. -- Bill Moran Potential Technology technical services http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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