Ugo Bellavance wrote: > Mark Weaver wrote: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> 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. Best,