Hi there Todd; If you're looking to build a BSD based router out of a Soekris box and you're not really into hacking your own stuff these days, I highly recommend you try out PFSense (http://pfsense.org)
It's a FreeBSD 8.x based routing/firewalling distribution. They have a native Flash DD image that works extremely well on a Net5501. I have a few in my lab and have benchmarked them at 80Mb/sec (firewalling) and 40Mb/sec (Firewall+VPN) with 3 network zones and a SPAN port. This is on a Net5501-60 w/ 512MB RAM. PFSense has an HTTP(s) interface, supports layer 2 bridging, aliasing/grouping and a great number of enterprise-type firewalling and routing features - even native Radius authentication for VPN setups. Also, if you can wait a few weeks, the Net6501 series is coming out with significantly more power than the 5501 and gigabit (vs 100meg) adapters. I'll be benchmarking them in my lab as soon as I can get a few; I expect > 100Mb/sec performance based on what I've seen from the 5501s. On 8/24/11 7:22 PM, Todd Pytel wrote: > I've had an OpenBSD router built on basically commodity PC hardware > running for many years now, long enough that I'm starting to worry about > some part of it (especially the disk) dying abruptly at the worst > possible time. I'm planning on replacing it with a Soekris box. Since I > don't have as much time for my tech hobby as I used to, I haven't > followed much in the way of tech, networking, or OpenBSD news. So I'm > hoping the folks in know here can give my plan a quick check and let me > know if I'm missing any important developments or overlooking any basic > hardware requirements. > > What I have right now is a box built on a VIA board with a 533MHz Samuel > 2 processor and 256MB of RAM, vintage 2003 or so. Mostly it just does > routing and firewalling duties for my network, which includes some > servers on public IP space used for very low-traffic hobby stuff. It's > also an NTP server for my network. That's it. So I have basically no > unusual requirements apart from having at least 3 network interfaces, > which looks like it's already standard on the Soekris gear. > > So from Soekris's offerings, does the standard net5501-60 look like a > good choice? Along with that, I'll need the appropriate power supply and > a CF card. Maybe an extra null modem cable since I can never find mine. > Anything else I'm missing? Then to get things installed I'll use a > serial console, do a PXE boot to get the installer running, and then go > from there? Any other unusual OpenBSD compatibility issues to worry > about? I know there are plenty of OBSD/Soekris project pages out there, > but it's not always clear whether anything important has changed in the > years since they were published. > > Thanks for any pointers you can provide. > > --Todd > > > > _______________________________________________ > Soekris-tech mailing list > Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com > http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
