If you hacker side is emerging then does it really have to be pfSense or m0n0wall? Why not go the whole hog and do your own setup.
I have a net 4801 that I have had running for a few years now with OpenBSD on it and PF. There are blenty of PF tutorials and documents out there for people who have some time to spare. 2008/9/26 Chris Boot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Jim, > > If you're looking to run pfSense I've found it doesn't work so well > anymore on a net4801, you need something beefier to get anywhere with > it. pfSense is less designed for embedded hardware than it is for > full-blown PCs, while m0n0wall is still aimed at the smaller devices > (and even that is starting to have trouble with less-powerful machines > like the 4801). > > I'd really recommend a net5501 for any new projects, despite the added > cost, size, and no doubt power consumption... > > Chris > > Jim Arnold wrote: >> Thanks in advance for humoring me with my unimportant story and >> questions... >> >> For the last few years a FreeBSD box running IPF has been protecting >> my little home cable modem network. Back then I was having fun hacking >> around teaching myself Unix. Once I finally migrated to OSX from >> System 9 I stopped playing around with Unix except for my little >> firewall and occasional peeks under OS X's hood. >> >> A recent storm took out my power supply on that firewall box. >> Unfortunately it was a proprietary power supply. I liberated a FreeBSD >> box out of the closet loaded with FreeBSD 4.11 and tried to duplicate >> my old firewall. Despite extensive documentation of my old system >> files I could not get this new box to work as my firewall. >> >> While searching around for a solutions I came across m0n0wall and >> PFSense. Getting them to install and work was very simple, especially >> PFSense, which was installed on a hard drive. Next I read about using >> a CF card instead of a hard drive. A few days later my IDE/CF adapter >> arrived and in minutes I had PFSense running off the compactflash >> card. My old Geek Hacker self was re-emerging. :) >> >> Then I read about the Soekris boxes. >> >> My router/firewall is in the basement so noise is not an issue. Now >> that I have the CF installed a power supply failure is the only weak >> link in the box. But since this was a home-built box it has a standard >> PS which will be easy to replace if necessary. >> >> The only reason I can come up with to plunk down $243 for a 4801, >> power supply and shipping, is to save power. I calculated my current >> router/firewall expends about 200 watts to run. That costs me $110 a >> year to power If my calculations are correct. If the 4801 takes 10 >> watts to power that would cost $5.50 a year. >> >> Is this a good enough rationalization? >> >> What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box? >> _______________________________________________ >> Soekris-tech mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech >> > _______________________________________________ > Soekris-tech mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech > -- Adam Retter _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
