[CentOS] Re: Firewall frustration

Tue Jan 1 16:59:57 UTC 2008
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

Chris Mauritz wrote:
> Ugo Bellavance wrote:
>> Mark Weaver wrote:
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>>> On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 08:57:22 -0500
>>> Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com> wrote:
>>>> Have you ever thought about how rare floppy drives are now?  At best
>>>> you go with a bootable usb, if your notebook supports bootable USB.
>>>> My Libretto does have a bootable floppy, but that is something extra
>>>> to carry.  It will not boot from anything else (besides its HD).  My
>>>> nc4010 (this notebook) will boot from usb.  My corp notebook (nc2400)
>>>> is locked down; and I don't see any value at getting corp IT bent out
>>>> of shape.
>>>
>>> why would you even think about using a Notebook computer as a firewall?
>>> I was assuming you were going to delegate this task to an older machine
>>> with sufficient resources to handle the task and not give the task to a
>>> notebook computer.
>>
>> I guess he wants it to be portable.
>>
>> He seems to be knowing his requirements a lot better than we do.  It
>> looks like he wants an easy firewall that would boot for HD only, cost
>> nothing, and runs with usb ethernet devices.
>>
>> I really think he should carry an embedded firewall (like a soekris or
>> a wrap) with pfsense on it.
> 
> Old laptops make pretty good firewalls, I think.  They take little
> space, have a built-in battery backup and built-in keyboard/monitor to
> use when you are visiting the datacenter.   I have repurposed a couple
> of older laptops for these reasons since the machine doesn't need to be
> very fast to accomplish the mission.  A lot of 3-4 year old laptops cave
> in under the weight of Windows, but are really overkill for a simple
> unix firewall.  Better than sending them to the dustbin.
> 

hmmm ... I would think that they do not handle heat very well though.

Maybe they do, and certainly it is better than throwing them away I guess.

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