On 8/16/05, Chris Zakelj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Kevin wrote: > >A friend needs to order a basic computer with a good warranty, > >to run as a very basic OpenBSD 3.7 firewall for a cablemodem. > >I'd put one together from parts, but I don't relish doing "won't boot" > >hardware support from 1600 miles away. . . . > I used one of the Dell Optiplex line about 2 years ago to build a > firewall at a chemical plant. I specifically asked my boss to get me > the bloody cheapest thing he could that had a PCI slot, and that's what > I ended up with.
I've had good luck redeploying Optiplex desktops with OpenBSD, and buying new PowerEdge machines; but I'm new to the Dimension "consumer" desktop product line. > As long as you stick to the hardware compatibility > list, you shouldn't have any trouble. Aye, there's the rub. Dell doesn't make it obvious what chipsets are actually in the machine, and I've personally encountered more than one incident where two machines ordered six months apart identical SKUs came with vastly different embedded controllers. > I will note that when I built that firewall, the embedded NIC was an xl, > which of course threw out all sorts of "Command not completed" errors. > Whether or not that is still a problem on current kernels (this was built > in the 3.3 days), I couldn't tell you, as my current home firewall has an rl > and an fxp in it. For low-throughput firewalls, I've been using scavenged dual port "Compaq DP Netelligent 10/100 TX" NICs. Since Matthew Bettinger confirms that the Dimension 3000 has an embedded 'bge', I'll just need to add an old 10baseT card for the cablemodem link. The next tricky bit will be making the firewall act as a secure wireless access point. I'm thinking USB, but I'll save those questions for later. Kevin Kadow
