I'm looking for some kind of appliance like box, maybe something like this:http://www.soekris.com/net5501.htm on which I could deploy iptables based firewall/openvpn/DNS and other local network services in a wide area network. I would probably install on a flash device. I would prefer something that was relatively easy to install on, or at least has been used with CentOS before, where I'm not needing to pull my hair out finding working drivers, building custom kernels etc.
Though I might spend time down the road to come up with an extremely minimal install, for rapid deployment in the first round, I'd like to be able to do a pretty standard install and have a full featured CentOS system that I could logon to and use for local network administrative tasks.
I could use something like a Mac mini, but my sense is there are are probably less expensive and more suitable devices.
- Two ethernet interfaces - working drivers for CentOS - flash - enterprise quality (i.e. not some flakey little home router device) - fast enough to do openvpn encryption on WAN links ranging from 50mb to 100mb
Though I do want enterprise quality, my sense is to make the device affordable enough that I could keep spares on site for backup purposes.
I would appreciate anyones experience with deploying such a setup.
Thanks, Nataraj