[ale] homebrew routers, castoff hardware

[Joey Kelly]

On Friday 22 September 2017 12:53:34 DJ-Pfulio wrote:
> The newer APU2 CPUs handle 750+Mbps on their GigE connections thanks to
> Intel NICs.  These aren't the old Alix boards.

I'm about to get a few of these for my lab. I'm working on a perpetual dev 
project and had wanted to use Soekris, but they just pulled out of the US. I 
started looking for a replacement and found these, the apparent Alix 
successor. These things are beefier and way cheaper, so it's a win.

On a side note, there's lots of little router-style boxes out of there, but 
most of them are from Red China. I shudder to think what lurks in the firmware.

--Joey

> 
> I don't run a VPN on mine - a VM easily handles that duty.  I want a
> router device to route and be a first defense firewall, not much else.
> 
> The performance from an old Alix to the newer APU2 systems is huge.
> https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=toqa0pphhsp2e5rcjp0aal8820&top
> ic=108231.msg612643#msg612643
> On 09/22/2017 08:10 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > Yeah, $150 or less for fanless firewall box as long as 100Mb network is
> > all that's being filtered. If it also needs to support free/openswan vpn
> > and/or higher bandwidth, that tiny cpu will become the bottleneck or a
> > fire hazard. :-)
> > 
> > For years I had a client that ran a small form factor pc with Linux OS
> > as a firewall. The OS was on a CD. It was updated with patches as
> > required with a new cd as I had a rather automated process to rebuild
> > it. The manual part was handling the cd. I used rewritable media and had
> > 2 disks, one in the firewall the other in the burner box (also the file
> > server). When kernel and network patches came out, the master was
> > patched, image burned and verified and email sent to swap disks. That
> > ran for 15 years.
> > 
> > I've used a few of the tiny box devices. I prefer a normal pc in a small
> > chassis.
> > 
> > On September 22, 2017 12:42:26 AM EDT, DJ-Pfulio <DJPfulio at jdpfu.com> 
wrote:
> >     On 09/21/2017 09:44 PM, Raj Wurttemberg wrote:
> >         My only issue with it is that it draws 114W
> >     
> >     A 10W, fanless, machine designed just for this stuff runs $144-ish and
> >     should easily last 10 yrs. The 1 I use supports VT-x and the case is
> >     part of the thermal design.
> >     
> >     You can roll your own on it, if you like.
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-- 
Joey Kelly
Minister of the Gospel and Linux Consultant
http://joeykelly.net
504-239-6550