Thanks for all the feedback! I really like the look of the Soekris boards.
The Soekris website isn't that helpful, but I jotted down all my research in case someone else wanted to look at it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjAAj_-IRQkdEs3TWNkZnZrUGs0S0FjYnRYQjFJZlE (That's not meant to be comprehensive; I stopped researching a model when it failed one of my requirements.) The text-only version (for those reading this in elm or pine :P) is: The Soekris Net6x series is an Intel Atom E6 with an EG20T, and 4 82574L 10/100/1000 chips, which are supported by the em driver. $299 - $456 for the board. The Soekris Net5x series is an AMD Geode LX with a CS5536, and 4 VT6105m 10/100 chips, which are supported by the vr driver. $254 - $222 for the board. The Soekris Net4x series uses an anonymous ethernet chip that you can't quite read in the photos and it's not listed in the spec sheet. I am pretty sure the Net4501-30 has a "VM552RR" chip, but I don't know who makes that. It does have a logo that looks a bit like an old Via logo. $135 - $178 for the board, but my current guess is that that mystery ethernet chip is not gonna have a driver. I think I will probably spring for the 6501-50 with their custom enclosure and external power. That lists at $380, plus $50 for a cheapo SSD, and I should be running at less than 30 watts for $480- which is a savings of 1,227 KWh per year (or about $283 at my local power rates), so it'll pay for itself in around 19 months. (Since I want to go to bed, I'm not going to attempt to figure in the change in heat loading's effect on heating and AC bills... they'll balance each other out, dammit. ;) ) Thanks again! On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Chris McGee <cmcge...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi guys- > > I am hunting for a low-power firewall for my home network. For at least > 10 years, whenever my firewall hardware has started to die, I've grabbed a > decommissioned game PC, added a few NIC's, and put OpenBSD on it. The > firewall's current incarnation pulls about 160 watts 24/7; I'd like to > lower that by a lot. > > Requirements are: > 1) Low power (<50w; I want it to pay for itself before the hardware > dies) > 2) 4 network interfaces (3 gigabit, one gigabit or 100mbps) > 3) Cheaper is better (e.g., a $200 4-port PCIE NIC on a $75 motherboard > is suboptimal) > 4) Works with OpenBSD 5.2 > 5) Won't cause a hardware bottleneck when pushing 200mbps of > multidirectional traffic through a moderately complex pf ruleset (this > doesn't take a lot of CPU; a 1 GHz Athlon runs at about 2% under load, and > most of that is from hardware interrupts). > > It looks like a lot of people use the Alix 2D13 for this, but I rejected > it for poor throughput (it would be great for the internet connection, but > it sounds like it might be a serious bottleneck between the internal > networks). > > Jetway makes a number of promising-looking Atom boards, including the > 4-interface NF38, but the NF38 and many other JetWays use the Realtek > RTL8111EVL, which doesn't appear to be OpenBSD-friendly. You can add > interfaces to Jetway boards via their daughterboards, but those are either > Realtek RTL8111F or Intel 82574L; same problem. (Google turns up one > report of the RTL8111 series sorta working with -current, but if you read > the guy's dmesg, it doesn't look like he HAS an RTL8111 in the first place.) > > > ...anyway, if you have a low-power OpenBSD network appliance with 3-4 > interfaces that you're happy with, please give me a yell. I've been through > a lot of boards without finding a winner so far!
