[tarballed]

Hello everyone.

I thought i'd post a quick update on the status of my Firewall.

Well, it was up and running beautifully. It was such a pleasure to have my firewall up, seeing it run with no hitch. I had a friend nmap my network and nothing came back. It just sat there.

I was completely happy sitting on cloud 9, looking to further play with BSD to learn more. I had such great plans...

Then, as I was working on my firewall, preparing to apply the patches, I heard a funny sound come from the box. It was a *POP*, then a high grinding noise. Then, the firewall shut off and the power went down. The computer died. :(

At first I was down and upset. Then I thought, hey this is going to be a blessing in disguise.
Yes, im disappointed that it happened, but on the flip side, now I get more practice in setting it up. Which is fine as I feel I can get my new firewall up in a jiffy with no problems. (Thanks to elmore, bsdjunkie, minion and frisco)

Info on the dead computer. It was a old IBM Aptiva, P166, 80mb RAM, 2.5Gig Drive. One thing I did not like about this computer was that it had a almost SCSI type integration around the CDROM and floppy. Basically, their was a seperate, small box that held the CDROM and the 3.5 drive. It connected to the Tower via a SCSI cable, even though the HD was IDE.
Anyways, when I was beginning to use the box and install OpenBSD, too often when I would reboot, it would hang when scanning the SCSI device.
The more I think about, the more im glad the box died as I dont feel it would have made a "stable" box to have a firewall on.

Now, I need to find a old clunker out there to put my firewall on.
I've been searching locally through the classifieds and computer stores and so far i've found no leads. I'm currently searching ebay, but shipping is going to be killer.

I'd like to go with at least a P100, 32-64mb RAM and min 2gig drive. Thats ideal, but I am flexible.

IF anyone has suggestions, feel free to throw it my way. Im dying to get started again. :)

Tarballed

[elmore]

Most of the firewalls I use liek the ones in my house, I have three, are old HP Vectra's. Pentium 90's with 32 meg. of ram and a whopping 1 gig hdd. You should be able to pick something like this up cheap, cheap, cheap.

Check out microseconds, they sell second hand.

http://www.microseconds.net

Here's a search string on ebay for old HP Vectra's, they work great as OBSD firewalls. On a side note, they also run NeXT/OpenSTEP really well.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&query=Vectra& ht=1&itemtimedisp=1&st=2&SortProperty=MetaEndSort& BasicSearch=

[frisco]

I'd like to go with at least a P100, 32-64mb RAM and min 2gig drive. Thats ideal, but I am flexible.

IF anyone has suggestions, feel free to throw it my way. Im dying to get started again.

It depends on where you live - i live in a college town which is a ripe location for free computers. my firewall & my mom's are both 486's w/ 12-32 megs RAM, 500 meg hd (used to be 170), both of which i got free.
My co-worker picked up a working P-200 at the recycling center (he was dropping off a broken machine).
My friends find working machines, monitors on the streets when the college kids move out.
I regularly scour the classifieds (on Sat. we have a special section for cheaper stuff) and often see old 486, pentiums, though not all the time.
The colleges around here have property disposition sales during which you can buy cheap old computers (plus other stuff - need an old xray machine?)

Depending on what is shot, your IBM might still be useable. If the floppy/cd is causing trouble, unplug them.
Last week i had a firewall give off blue sparks and die. Wouldn't boot up, but i could hear the fans whirr, the initial ram count, then nothing, so i figured it wasnt the mobo but something on it. turned out to be a shot network card (there were burn marks around its main chip).

If you describe the sypmtoms of the IBM, maybe someone here can help you. at least your HD, cards and RAM might be salvageable. From the Pop and grinding sound, it could just be the power supply is shot.

[bsdjunkie]

My firewall is a Sparc IPX. Its not fast, but runs openbsd great. You can get these cheap on ebay. In fact, the main cost of using this as a firewall is getting a 2nd sun NIC. That cost me more than the box did ;) Anyways, its like 40mhz, and has a 200mg HD. All my logs are transfered off the box daily to another log server so i dont fill up the HD on it. Another benefit of running it on a sparc, is its a diff architecture, and canned wintel exploits wont work unless they rewrite with new shellcode. =) Its more than capable with keeping up with the network traffic i produce on my LAN. :roll:

btw: i quick check on ebay shows you can buy one now for $25 =P

[tarballed]

Very intriguing bsdjunkie. Very cool also. :)

Solaris is something I very much want to pursue in the future. Your setup sounds very cool. It's something i'd like to pursue, but probably have to wait abit until Im more comfortable with OpenBSD.

Very cool stuff though.

Tarballed

[frisco]

My firewall is a Sparc IPX. Its not fast, but runs openbsd great.

The best part about Sun Hardware is the BIOS. love that BIOS!

Most useful is the serial port console setup - no need for monitor/keyboard right out of the box. If it doesn't detect keyboard, then it uses the serial port for input/output - very useful for installs - i put in the cd and go home, doing the rest from home, including reboots and all. if somethings goes wrong, serial console gives me same power as being there.

[tarballed]

Just a quick question. Would you say that a CDROM is required? Since I install OpenBSD via ftp, i was wondering if I need a CDROM?

I've found some cheap computers for $29, but no CDROM, everything else though.

Thoughts?

the Tar

[bsdjunkie]

dont see why you would need a cdrom. at least not for a dedicated firewall.

[frisco]

Just a quick question. Would you say that a CDROM is required? Since I install OpenBSD via ftp, i was wondering if I need a CDROM?

you answered your own question. did you need a cd drive? nope.

neither of my home firewalls have cd drives. i even have a laptop with neither a cd drive nor a floppy drive. all runing OpenBSD quite nicely.
Granted those aren't by choice; if i had been able to afford/find equipment with cd drives i would have taken them.