Chris Mauritz wrote: > 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. I have a Dell notebook that functions as my backup Win2000 family finance system. Next project is to see if I can reuse that old Toshiba 4000cdt box ;)