Talk me out of buying a net4801

[Jim Arnold-2]

Thanks in advance for humoring me with my unimportant story and  
questions...

For the last few years a FreeBSD box running IPF has been protecting  
my little home cable modem network. Back then I was having fun hacking  
around teaching myself Unix. Once I finally migrated to OSX from  
System 9 I  stopped playing around with Unix except for my little  
firewall and occasional peeks under OS X's hood.

A recent storm took out my power supply on that firewall box.  
Unfortunately it was a proprietary power supply. I liberated a FreeBSD  
box out of the closet loaded with FreeBSD 4.11 and tried to duplicate  
my old firewall. Despite extensive documentation of my old system  
files I could not get this new box to work as my firewall.

While searching around for a solutions I came across m0n0wall and  
PFSense. Getting them to install and work was very simple, especially  
PFSense, which was installed on a hard drive. Next I read about using  
a CF card instead of a hard drive. A few days later my IDE/CF adapter  
arrived and in minutes I had PFSense running off the compactflash  
card. My old Geek Hacker self was re-emerging. :)

Then I read about the Soekris boxes.

My router/firewall is in the basement so noise is not an issue. Now  
that I have the CF installed a power supply failure is the only weak  
link in the box. But since this was a home-built box it has a standard  
PS which will be easy to replace if necessary.

The only reason I can come up with to plunk down $243 for a 4801,  
power supply and shipping, is to save power.  I calculated my current  
router/firewall expends about 200 watts to run. That costs me $110 a  
year to power If my calculations are correct. If the 4801 takes 10  
watts to power that would cost $5.50 a year.

Is this a good enough rationalization?

What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box?
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[David Zelinsky]

Jim Arnold <jim0266@...> writes:

> The only reason I can come up with to plunk down $243 for a 4801,  
> power supply and shipping, is to save power.  I calculated my current  
> router/firewall expends about 200 watts to run. That costs me $110 a  
> year to power If my calculations are correct. If the 4801 takes 10  
> watts to power that would cost $5.50 a year.
>
> Is this a good enough rationalization?

Sounds good to me.  Help fight global warming!

> What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box?

I don't know any statistics, but I've had one running nonstop for 2
years now with no problems.

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[Stef Walter]

David Zelinsky wrote:
>> What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box?
>
> I don't know any statistics, but I've had one running nonstop for 2
> years now with no problems.

I've had 10 48xx boxes running a few years non-stop in heat and
electrically charged conditions, lightning strikes nearby, etc. Of
course these are hermetically sealed and grounded, etc... but not one
has failed due to hardware problems.

Cheers,
Stef Walter

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[Chris Boot]

Jim,

If you're looking to run pfSense I've found it doesn't work so well
anymore on a net4801, you need something beefier to get anywhere with
it. pfSense is less designed for embedded hardware than it is for
full-blown PCs, while m0n0wall is still aimed at the smaller devices
(and even that is starting to have trouble with less-powerful machines
like the 4801).

I'd really recommend a net5501 for any new projects, despite the added
cost, size, and no doubt power consumption...

Chris

Jim Arnold wrote:

> Thanks in advance for humoring me with my unimportant story and  
> questions...
>
> For the last few years a FreeBSD box running IPF has been protecting  
> my little home cable modem network. Back then I was having fun hacking  
> around teaching myself Unix. Once I finally migrated to OSX from  
> System 9 I  stopped playing around with Unix except for my little  
> firewall and occasional peeks under OS X's hood.
>
> A recent storm took out my power supply on that firewall box.  
> Unfortunately it was a proprietary power supply. I liberated a FreeBSD  
> box out of the closet loaded with FreeBSD 4.11 and tried to duplicate  
> my old firewall. Despite extensive documentation of my old system  
> files I could not get this new box to work as my firewall.
>
> While searching around for a solutions I came across m0n0wall and  
> PFSense. Getting them to install and work was very simple, especially  
> PFSense, which was installed on a hard drive. Next I read about using  
> a CF card instead of a hard drive. A few days later my IDE/CF adapter  
> arrived and in minutes I had PFSense running off the compactflash  
> card. My old Geek Hacker self was re-emerging. :)
>
> Then I read about the Soekris boxes.
>
> My router/firewall is in the basement so noise is not an issue. Now  
> that I have the CF installed a power supply failure is the only weak  
> link in the box. But since this was a home-built box it has a standard  
> PS which will be easy to replace if necessary.
>
> The only reason I can come up with to plunk down $243 for a 4801,  
> power supply and shipping, is to save power.  I calculated my current  
> router/firewall expends about 200 watts to run. That costs me $110 a  
> year to power If my calculations are correct. If the 4801 takes 10  
> watts to power that would cost $5.50 a year.
>
> Is this a good enough rationalization?
>
> What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box?
> _______________________________________________
> Soekris-tech mailing list
> Soekris-tech@...
> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
>  

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[Adam Retter-4]

If you hacker side is emerging then does it really have to be pfSense
or m0n0wall? Why not go the whole hog and do your own setup.

I have a net 4801 that I have had running for a few years now with
OpenBSD on it and PF. There are blenty of PF tutorials and documents
out there for people who have some time to spare.

2008/9/26 Chris Boot <bootc@...>:

> Jim,
>
> If you're looking to run pfSense I've found it doesn't work so well
> anymore on a net4801, you need something beefier to get anywhere with
> it. pfSense is less designed for embedded hardware than it is for
> full-blown PCs, while m0n0wall is still aimed at the smaller devices
> (and even that is starting to have trouble with less-powerful machines
> like the 4801).
>
> I'd really recommend a net5501 for any new projects, despite the added
> cost, size, and no doubt power consumption...
>
> Chris
>
> Jim Arnold wrote:
>> Thanks in advance for humoring me with my unimportant story and
>> questions...
>>
>> For the last few years a FreeBSD box running IPF has been protecting
>> my little home cable modem network. Back then I was having fun hacking
>> around teaching myself Unix. Once I finally migrated to OSX from
>> System 9 I  stopped playing around with Unix except for my little
>> firewall and occasional peeks under OS X's hood.
>>
>> A recent storm took out my power supply on that firewall box.
>> Unfortunately it was a proprietary power supply. I liberated a FreeBSD
>> box out of the closet loaded with FreeBSD 4.11 and tried to duplicate
>> my old firewall. Despite extensive documentation of my old system
>> files I could not get this new box to work as my firewall.
>>
>> While searching around for a solutions I came across m0n0wall and
>> PFSense. Getting them to install and work was very simple, especially
>> PFSense, which was installed on a hard drive. Next I read about using
>> a CF card instead of a hard drive. A few days later my IDE/CF adapter
>> arrived and in minutes I had PFSense running off the compactflash
>> card. My old Geek Hacker self was re-emerging. :)
>>
>> Then I read about the Soekris boxes.
>>
>> My router/firewall is in the basement so noise is not an issue. Now
>> that I have the CF installed a power supply failure is the only weak
>> link in the box. But since this was a home-built box it has a standard
>> PS which will be easy to replace if necessary.
>>
>> The only reason I can come up with to plunk down $243 for a 4801,
>> power supply and shipping, is to save power.  I calculated my current
>> router/firewall expends about 200 watts to run. That costs me $110 a
>> year to power If my calculations are correct. If the 4801 takes 10
>> watts to power that would cost $5.50 a year.
>>
>> Is this a good enough rationalization?
>>
>> What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box?
>> _______________________________________________
>> Soekris-tech mailing list
>> Soekris-tech@...
>> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Soekris-tech mailing list
> Soekris-tech@...
> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
>

--
Adam Retter
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[Andy Michaels]

> If you're looking to run pfSense I've found it doesn't work so well
> anymore on a net4801, you need something beefier to get anywhere with
> it. pfSense is less designed for embedded hardware than it is for
> full-blown PCs, while m0n0wall is still aimed at the smaller devices
> (and even that is starting to have trouble with less-powerful machines
> like the 4801).

I've got a 4801 that I purchased back in 2004.  It has 128MB RAM and  
runs PFSense just fine.   I installed it 3 months ago, (used to run  
OpenBSD) and it's been running flawlessly ever since.  No noise (well,  
okay, there's a very slight hum, but you have to put your ear to the  
case to hear it).

-Andy

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[Bill Maas-2]

On Fri, 2008-09-26 at 09:44 +0100, Adam Retter wrote:
> If you hacker side is emerging then does it really have to be pfSense
> or m0n0wall? Why not go the whole hog and do your own setup.

Word.

Bill;)

> I have a net 4801 that I have had running for a few years now with
> OpenBSD on it and PF. There are blenty of PF tutorials and documents
> out there for people who have some time to spare.
>
> 2008/9/26 Chris Boot <bootc@...>:
> > Jim,
> >
> > If you're looking to run pfSense I've found it doesn't work so well
> > anymore on a net4801, you need something beefier to get anywhere with
> > it. pfSense is less designed for embedded hardware than it is for
> > full-blown PCs, while m0n0wall is still aimed at the smaller devices
> > (and even that is starting to have trouble with less-powerful machines
> > like the 4801).
> >
> > I'd really recommend a net5501 for any new projects, despite the added
> > cost, size, and no doubt power consumption...
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > Jim Arnold wrote:
> >> Thanks in advance for humoring me with my unimportant story and
> >> questions...
> >>
> >> For the last few years a FreeBSD box running IPF has been protecting
> >> my little home cable modem network. Back then I was having fun hacking
> >> around teaching myself Unix. Once I finally migrated to OSX from
> >> System 9 I  stopped playing around with Unix except for my little
> >> firewall and occasional peeks under OS X's hood.
> >>
> >> A recent storm took out my power supply on that firewall box.
> >> Unfortunately it was a proprietary power supply. I liberated a FreeBSD
> >> box out of the closet loaded with FreeBSD 4.11 and tried to duplicate
> >> my old firewall. Despite extensive documentation of my old system
> >> files I could not get this new box to work as my firewall.
> >>
> >> While searching around for a solutions I came across m0n0wall and
> >> PFSense. Getting them to install and work was very simple, especially
> >> PFSense, which was installed on a hard drive. Next I read about using
> >> a CF card instead of a hard drive. A few days later my IDE/CF adapter
> >> arrived and in minutes I had PFSense running off the compactflash
> >> card. My old Geek Hacker self was re-emerging. :)
> >>
> >> Then I read about the Soekris boxes.
> >>
> >> My router/firewall is in the basement so noise is not an issue. Now
> >> that I have the CF installed a power supply failure is the only weak
> >> link in the box. But since this was a home-built box it has a standard
> >> PS which will be easy to replace if necessary.
> >>
> >> The only reason I can come up with to plunk down $243 for a 4801,
> >> power supply and shipping, is to save power.  I calculated my current
> >> router/firewall expends about 200 watts to run. That costs me $110 a
> >> year to power If my calculations are correct. If the 4801 takes 10
> >> watts to power that would cost $5.50 a year.
> >>
> >> Is this a good enough rationalization?
> >>
> >> What is a reasonable lifespan of a Soekris box?
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Soekris-tech mailing list
> >> Soekris-tech@...
> >> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Soekris-tech mailing list
> > Soekris-tech@...
> > http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
> >
>
>
>

--
"There is nothing to worry about" - unknown

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