Smoothwall Hardware

[ddrueding]

I'm building a bunch of machiens to be used as smoothwall routers. Here is what I've come up with so far:

VIA EPIA PD 6000 - Fanless 600Mhz, Dual Ethernet - $170.00
pico PSU-80 - 80 Watt tiny PS - $45.00
VoomPC Enclosure - Aluminium Chassis - $80.00
CF-IDE adapter - Allows CF to connect to IDE - $10.00
1GB CF Card - 1GB Compact Flash Card - $35.00
Corsair 512MB - Corsair 512MB DDR400 RAM - $35.00

Total $375.00

Thoughts?

 

[Tannin]

Why so much RAM?

 

[Mercutio]

Why so much everything?

 

[Tannin]

Well ... it is Dave. I mean who else do you know that trims his fingernails with a chainsaw?

 

[LiamC]

David, I'm assuming this is for a client, why not re-use some of their existing machines and use the money for other upgrades? Are you worried about reliability?

Are you using them as transparent proxies? VPN? What other services have you/will you turn on. If they are just firewalls, the memory is overkill. How many clients will each Smoothy handle?

 

[ddrueding]

Guys? Did you notice that 512MB of RAM is $35? 256MB is about $25. What is the point of saving $10 and getting half the RAM?

I am going to be building quite a few of these. I like smoothwall and have been deplying it at a number of my locations. I imagine I'll have an initial order of 10 systems, likely double that in the next few months. Using an old PC gives you a solution that looks like an old PC, I don't think they would be happy with me billing what I do if I bring in an old beige box. Also, these cases are tiny (just large enough for the mobo&hdd) so it will look quite slick.

Overkill? This is the slowest version of the slowest processor on the market. It just happens to be the version of the motherboard that supports dual Ethernet. I could get away with a 512MB flash card to save $10. and I could get away with a 256MB stick of RAM and save another $10. But my margin is already 100%, so saving a few bucks doesn't make much sense.

I was actually quite suprised at how low the price was considering how clean a package it should make.

 

[ddrueding]

Are you using them as transparent proxies? VPN? What other services have you/will you turn on. If they are just firewalls, the memory is overkill. How many clients will each Smoothy handle?

For the first client it will be just a simple point to point VPN. I know if I'm goinng to be using proxy or caching services I'll need to use an actual HDD, but a 40GB 2.5" HDD would only be a few dollars more. I'd just rather avoid any moving parts and keep heat/power to a minimum.

 

[Mercutio]

You could also save $10/machine and not install RAM that's never going to be used.

 

[Tea]

Ignore Tannin, Dave, he's just grumpy because it's Friday. And you think he is not one to talk? Hey - I send him out to buy a bus ticket and he comes home with a part share in a Learjet. Hoolie Doolie, the only man more into massive overkill as mere routine that I know is me - and I am not even a man! Oh, and then there is Belinda who bought a new car because she lost her keys. And we haven't even started on Mercutio yet. Not to mention Handruin, who is doing his singlehanded best to double Canon USA's annual profit margin nd only takes pictures of his cat mooning.

 

[Tannin]

Tea! Stop that right now!

 

[Tea]

sorry

 

[Sol]

I was looking for a similar spec system to help a mate build a MAME box and I noticed that VIA boards and CPUs would cost about $60 more than a gigabyte 754 board and a 64bit semperon 2600+... It's possible that you can get VIA stuff cheaper than I can or that the power savings of using a VIA chip are worth it but it's worth considering that more mass produced gear may be cheaper...

Of course in a MAME box space is also less of an issue... You could fit a bar fridge in those things, so that's probably more of a consideration for you...

 

[Tea]

it was something to do with moons and cats, anyway

 

[Tannin]

Damn it Sol, now you've dragged the thread on-topic.

But seeing as you've set the trend, David, I can see where you are coming from. When I build a smoothie I usually explain to the client that the $200 bill is $1 for the box and $199 for knowing how to install it. They accept that quite happily. (Why only $200? I'm assuming that we are only doing the basic functions here; easy job. If they want VPN and etc then they are S.O.L. - I just don't have the time to figure out that stuff and keep up with everthing else I have to do. Your way is probably better. (Has anyone got a spare week they can lend me?)

Oh, and Tea - it's not Friday.

 

[ddrueding]

Heat and space are big issues for this type of thing. It will be replacing a Linksys (or similar) router and I've told them it is "better" and it 14x the cost. So it needs to look really shiny.

OK, OK, I give up! I just looked at my most complex smoothie build (T-1, 200+ local users, 5 VPN connections to other smoothies, etc) and it's taking 160MB of RAM and ~400MB of HDD space. 256 it is...

 

[Sol]

I suppose that statistically speaking if your customers want stupidly complex setups then they are me... But anyway sorry about draging us back to the topic but that's what you get for posting three times while I was considering my own post...

 

[LiamC]

Heat and space are big issues for this type of thing. It will be replacing a Linksys (or similar) router and I've told them it is "better" and it 14x the cost. So it needs to look really shiny.

OK, OK, I give up! I just looked at my most complex smoothie build (T-1, 200+ local users, 5 VPN connections to other smoothies, etc) and it's taking 160MB of RAM and ~400MB of HDD space. 256 it is...

Rackable? And I'd agree with Sol, you might want to investigate a 256KB Sempron—should be cheaper than the VIA, but I'm not sure how small a form factor you can get. Damn fine little boxes you're building there in any case. Keep us updated.

 

[LiamC]

Can you make your CF card in that adapter Read-only—if your not using the Smoothy box as a proxy?

 

[Sol]

Since it's a linux based distro it should be as simple as setting everything to mount read only in the fstab file.

 

[Mercutio]

re: MAME box.

My Via system runs "modern" MAME titles (Killer Instinct) poorly but is probably great for anything of mid-90s vintage or earlier.

 

[Tannin]

I suppose that statistically speaking if your customers want stupidly complex setups then they are me.

I'll pay that one. Hell, I've been paid for that one. You are the only home-user customer I have that buys hard drives by the carton and RAM by the kilogram.

 

[Tea]

But anyway sorry about draging us back to the topic but that's what you get for posting three times while I was considering my own post...

Consider before posting? Now there is an interesting idea. I'll have to try it. Maybe one day when I get bored.

 

[LiamC]

Consider ... ~~snip

Bah! Overrated!
:mrgrn:

 

[CougTek]

I gave up on smoothwall years ago when I read that the admin password was stored in an uncrypted .txt file. That really tells about its level of security.

Is OpenBSD that hard to configure?

 

[ddrueding]

I'm building some more of these things; they were so successful and so popular.

What do people here think of just using a USB stick as a HDD instead of a CF card in an IDE adapter? Think Smoothwall will have an issue? Anyone know if the BIOS will have a problem?

 

[Handruin]

I'd be worried constant read/writes might wear it out... Does smooth wall keep logs or access the disc often?

 

[ddrueding]

I'd be worried constant read/writes might wear it out... Does smooth wall keep logs or access the disc often?

Nope. You can even make it read-only. And there isn't much disk access at all after start-up. My only concerns were on mounting a USB disk as a hard drive in Linux. Or is this all BIOS controlled?

 

[Dïscfärm]

Don't bother with a USB flash drive, use an ATA/IDE -to- Compact Flash adapter to boot from.

These handy devices have been around for years. They are cheap. They use the mobo's ATA/IDE channel -- no USB.

Below is just one of the many that are available:

http://www.syba.com/product/43/10/03/index.html

 

[ddrueding]

Don't bother with a USB flash drive, use an ATA/IDE -to- Compact Flash adapter to boot from.

This is what I used in my older models. However, it is larger, more complicated, and more expensive. That's why I was thinking about USB.

 

[lak]

Hi All

I just got a smoothwall up running on my EPIA PD6000, 256mb ram, 100W atx powersupply, CF to ide controller and an industriel CF card.
A CF card has approx 100.000 write times on each "sector" but an industriel card make sure that you don't write at the same place all the time. I had no problems with the bios. The CF car was displayed as if it was a HD.
Installation went "smooth" ) and I'am going to make some speed tests on the system late this month.
Approx power use is 22-25W.

I tried the monowall before this but I was only able to get a 6mbit throughput from wan to lan. Read that it might had something to do with the via lan adapters.

best regards

lak

 

[LiamC]

Thanks for the data point lak, and welcome to the forums.

 

[blakerwry]

I had a few smoothwall experiences, but decided to use monowall in my last couple installs because it had the features I wanted built in (portal, vpn, RADIUS).

Just to respond to lak, I am using a pII 400 w/ 3 intel pro100 NICs and have no problem getting ~9MB/sec out of the 100mbit link.

I practically swear by intel NICs and have a pile of them at work. They work well under any OS I've ever tried.

 

[ddrueding]

I've been using the new SmoothWall 3. You might want to take another look at it, lots of features added and a very comprehensive collection of add-ons with web interfaces.

 

[lak]

Hi Blakerwry

This is also what I heard. If you use 3com or intel there is no problems with monowall, but other brands are not supported very good. Some say that the via cards my epia board contains is crappy, but I have tried them under SUSE 10 running about 8,5MB/s throughput. I guess it's just a matter of the right driver, but I isn't a Freebsd freak )

I'am currently trying to get another project up running. Useing a 3 1/4" motherboard 600mhz celerun, 512mb ram, compact flash, 2 200GB ide HD and Embedded XP.
Compact flash for operating system and ide drives for storage.
Embedded XP contains a write filter so you don't damage your compact flash with too many writings. I think this is easy way for me to have a file/medie and storage server. A good thing is that it runs most normal windows app.

best regrads

lak

 

[Jan Kivar]

Why not get the Intel's mini-ITX board? That + $4 Realtek card would drop the price $100. Granted, it won't fit into that shiny VoomPC enclosure...

Cheers,

Jan

 

[ddrueding]

Looks good Lak. What enclosure do you intend to use?

I've used a dozen or so of the VroomPC enclosures, and they all manage to use really loud fans that aren't well positioned based on the motherboard layout. I'm still waiting for an alternative that uses an 80mm fan on the larger side. I'm also waiting for the automatic fan control of the low-power motherboards to get smart enough to stop the fan completely when the system is at room temperature.

I think I'll be waiting a long time.