Post your Smoothie/ipcop/etc. specs

[iGamer]

WMP54GV4 on PFsense 1.2.3

you mean WRT54G? WMP is a wireless card

 

[jtg1993]

Nope no WRT54G, he has a Linksys Wireless card model WMP54Gv4. You can even see it in the picture.

 

[iGamer]

LOL my bad... wow I must have been really out of it... I thought he meant he had PFSense on the WMP54G! wow, I'm sorry....

 

[calvinj]

I thought I would try something a little different

eMachine t3104
1 gb of ram
Centos 5.3
Vmware Server 2.1
2x Intel Dual Head 10/100 Nics (eth0 -3)
1x onboard for management (ssh)

fw01:
384 mb ram
35gb hd
wan bridged to eth0
lan bridged to eth1

fw02
384 mb ram
35gb hd
wan bridged to eth2
lan bridged to eth3

need to setup the host only network for fail over, but first need to figure out why the box keeps freezing up in the first place.

 

[jmroberts70]

I'd like to replace my old Optiplex GX1 I've had running as my Smoothwall now for a few years but nothing seems to catch my attention. I like the GX1 for several reasons but mainly that it takes full-size expansion cards using a riser to it's still a very compact chassis. All the other Optiplex models after that either used half-height cards or didn't accept cards at all! In fact, the Optiplex SX280 to the bottom left (my file server and soon to be running Windows Home Server) not only has very limited expansion but can easily overheat (the main problem with this model besides a massive batch of bad capacitors on the mobos). I'm working on a retrofit for the SX280 to mount a 120mm fan on the case side (instead of the getto-mod you see here). Since I have another 4 of these models, I'd like them all to run smoothly as long as possible.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a different SFF system that I can find to replace my aging GX1's? I only have 1 spare and would like to find a solution I can start stocking up on to distribute to my clients...

 

[BigTy]

I am using a GX280 with SW3.

You also can check out the GX270, and GX260.

 

[vectravl400]

Does it have to be sff? The standard desktop Dell models gx240-280 (just a little bigger than the sff) all use a riser that accommodates full height cards. Any of them would seem to do the job. Just watch out for the gx270s. They had a huge problem with bad motherboards.

 

[OmegaAvenger]

Does it have to be sff? The standard desktop Dell models gx240-280 (just a little bigger than the sff) all use a riser that accommodates full height cards. Any of them would seem to do the job. Just watch out for the gx270s. They had a huge problem with bad motherboards.

you can use an old at sized full tower or even a mainframe provided it will install or run. SFF systems are better because they take up less space, since they dont need the expandability, and typically produce a bit less heat because they usually have lower speced CPUs in the SFF machines.

The company I used to work for is using a desktop gx260, the thinner version with the PCI slots parallell with the MB, as a monowall router. Its so vastly over speced for the crappy DSL line they have that its ridiculous.

 

[jmroberts70]

Yeah, I thought about the GX2__ series but I just don't know which one has the half-height cards and which ones use a riser. Is it just the GX260's that use a riser and full-sized cards?

EDIT: just checked out google images of both the 270 and the 260. I see both models show either half-height card slots or a riser cards. What gives?!

 

[BigTy]

I seen some that have full size cards the ones I have do not so I just use the half size cards I get the NICs for 15.00. But if you want to use a full size card look at the GX240s

 

[calvinj]

I have 2 gx270's and they both take the half height cards.

 

[OmegaAvenger]

they come in 3 models. Standard, mini-tower (Thinner, has a riser), and SFF (Smallest, uses half height cards)

 

[cyberjt]

If memory serves me correct the standard desktop has a option module for the expansion slots which allows either half height vertical or full height horizontal depending on which version you ordered.

 

[vectravl400]

If memory serves me correct the standard desktop has a option module for the expansion slots which allows either half height vertical or full height horizontal depending on which version you ordered.

That's the one I was thinking of. I have seen several used for this because they are relatively compact and still allow for the use of a full height card

you can use an old at sized full tower or even a mainframe provided it will install or run. SFF systems are better because they take up less space, since they dont need the expandability, and typically produce a bit less heat because they usually have lower speced CPUs in the SFF machines.

I wasn't blindly suggesting that the OP change his setup, but In this case expandability was part of the issue. So the standard desktop config would seem to be ideal for this.

As an aside, if all you need is a PIII processor, try a GX150. They can be found in the same case config and would probably be cheaper to run than a P4.

 

[OmegaAvenger]

That's the one I was thinking of. I have seen several used for this because they are relatively compact and still allow for the use of a full height card



I wasn't blindly suggesting that the OP change his setup, but In this case expandability was part of the issue. So the standard desktop config would seem to be ideal for this.

As an aside, if all you need is a PIII processor, try a GX150. They can be found in the same case config and would probably be cheaper to run than a P4.

The difference is negligible. Since the PIII and P4 cpus were made on different die sizes. The heat output is about the same, but the p4 will perform better under high load. Plus DDR ram which most p4s use is much cheaper than SD.

I recommend the gx260 (with the latestest bios version) becuase you can boot it off a thumbdrive and remove the optical and HDD and save more power that way. Thats how I set up my previous company's monowall box. Made it insanely easy to update, and since it was as small (64mb capacity and small size), and it fit under the flap dell has on the front to cover the USB ports, it was perfect. the gx150 is too old for USB booting.

 

[jmroberts70]

I recommend the gx260 (with the latestest bios version) becuase you can boot it off a thumbdrive and remove the optical and HDD and save more power that way. Thats how I set up my previous company's monowall box. Made it insanely easy to update, and since it was as small (64mb capacity and small size), and it fit under the flap dell has on the front to cover the USB ports, it was perfect. the gx150 is too old for USB booting.

OOO!! I like that setup!! That's MUCH easier than the CF to IDE adapter I'm currently using... I've got at least 2 thumb drives hanging around I could use for this! Thx!!

 

[OmegaAvenger]

OOO!! I like that setup!! That's MUCH easier than the CF to IDE adapter I'm currently using... I've got at least 2 thumb drives hanging around I could use for this! Thx!!

You're welcome. Again just make sure its the latest bios or it wont support USB booting.

 

[Phantum]

Switched from Smoothwall 3 Polar to pfSense 1.2.2 and I am truly amazed! It's extremely well refined and complex in its simplicity. It runs great on an old PII 450 w/ 512MB's RAM. So far I've got HAVP, Squid and snort running.

EDIT: If you haven't tried pfSense...you should! From what I can gather it's the best value and performance in a single package. FreeBSD has some holy ability to do ALOT of work with very little power.

 

[DieTa]

Hey,

ok - so here are my IPCop specs:

- CPU: AMD64EE X2 / very energy efficient
- BOARD: ECS-A740GM-M (onboard graphic, onboard NIC)
- RAM: 2GB DDR2-533
- HDD: 2GB CF-Card with 9MB/s
- NIC2: 3com 3C-2000T
- ISDN: HFC-S Chipset ISDN PCI Card, hopefully will work with Asterisk to get my Cisco IP Phone 7960 running
- 4U 19" case to put it into my rack

I'm currently fighting with the CF-to-IDE adapter - it will not boot, I think it's the adapter, so I've ordered a new one today.

My previous machine was a DELL PowerEdge 1650 which was a "bit" oversized for this job (1x PIII/1.4GHz, 36GB SCA HDD) and used to use way too much power.

 

[cyberjt]

Hey,


I'm currently fighting with the CF-to-IDE adapter - it will not boot, I think it's the adapter, so I've ordered a new one today.

.

Just checking you do have the power connector for it? - A friend had one of these but did not order the stupidly cheap cable that fits on what looks like a jumper prongs and hence it never seemed to work!

 

[DieTa]

Just checking you do have the power connector for it? - A friend had one of these but did not order the stupidly cheap cable that fits on what looks like a jumper prongs and hence it never seemed to work!

Yep. Honestly - this was really my first fault, the card was not detected and I asked myseld why - then suddenly I reminded myself: You've to attach this "floppy molex" to the adapter

The adapter itself has really less options - a jumper for Master/Slave selection and this power-connector on the back. The new one ordered fits into the brackets of my server

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...74781&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_1847wt_1167

In case that this also won't work, I've also ordered a 2.5" IDE to IDE cable adapter, so I could use my 120GB IDE 2.5" HDD I've laying around here - of course I would prefer the CF card.

 

[Jay_2]

Atom 230
Gigabyte ITX Board
1GB RAM
1 x 8GB CF Card with SATA Converter
Akasa ITX Case with external power brick
3 x 100Mbps NICs (2 x USB)
1 x 24Mb ADSL (11Mb sync) 1 x 10Mb Cable
pfSense

pfSense Dashboard

uTorrent

Before Load Balance



After Load Balance



I'm not sure why I have lost a bit of upload and ignore the ISP its actually both Telewest and O2 at the same time

 

[Cheval]

What type/model case is that sitting under the keyboard and monitor? Me likes.

 

[Jay_2]

yes, its very good.

I am in the UK and got it from eBay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12u-450mm-wal...g_SM?hash=item4cea42d4b8&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

[thedintedcan]

Just got a supermicro 5013 into production running pfsense 1.2.3 rc3.
Specs: 3ghz p4 (lga775), 1gb DDR2, 80gb sata 2.5" hdd, two onboard broadcom nics, added in a dual intel pro 1000mt pcix nic.

Screenshots:

 

[MooCow]

New IPCOP machine with NEW MOTHERBOARD >>> $100 MSI board with DUAL LAN's with an Intel Atom 1.6 Solo core CPU. 1 Gig of RAM came from logic supply because they know compatibility. Via can SUCK IT with their OVERPRICED itx boards!!! CF to SATA adapter came from deal extreme, 8 Gig CF card from Amazon. Case came from Directron.

I tried to load m0n0wall but I think their installer blows, It asked for my LAN / NIC adapters to have their "link up" or active state, yet it could not detect the LAN's or if I have to go beyond the installer to get the lan active then monowall installer can suck it too. IPCOP is easier to install, but is an aging old linux distro (because it still asks you about ISDN by default). Seriously, I don't know what I did wrong with the m0n0wall install, but it did not find my LAN adapters quick enough. Is pfsense a lot better?

 

[centurion]

New IPCOP machine with NEW MOTHERBOARD >>> $100 MSI board with DUAL LAN's with an Intel Atom 1.6 Solo core CPU. 1 Gig of RAM came from logic supply because they know compatibility. Via can SUCK IT with their OVERPRICED itx boards!!! CF to SATA adapter came from deal extreme, 8 Gig CF card from Amazon. Case came from Directron.


I tried to load m0n0wall but I think their installer blows, It asked for my LAN / NIC adapters to have their "link up" or active state, yet it could not detect the LAN's or if I have to go beyond the installer to get the lan active then monowall installer can suck it too. IPCOP is easier to install, but is an aging old linux distro (because it still asks you about ISDN by default). Seriously, I don't know what I did wrong with the m0n0wall install, but it did not find my LAN adapters quick enough. Is pfsense a lot better?

Is the board using the Realtek 8111c chipset? I recently rebuilt my router with a Supermicro board w/ an Atom 330 and had a bitch of a time with that chipset. Endian doesn't have driver support for it yet (uses the Realtek 8169 driver) but Smoothwall worked fine. There are some instructions out there for Endian on how to download and compile the correct drivers, so maybe that was the issue with m0n0wall.

 

[MooCow]

I see then. In any case, IPCOP detected the onboard LAN adapters correctly, so I stick with what will work for now unfortunately. IPCOP is old, and I do feel that I should be using something newer, since ipcop.org points to the sourceforge website now, they used to have a real homepage.

Also with the SATA adapter, I think it speeds up boot times because I always had issues with linux detecting some strange things about DMA mode on all four IDE channels and it was quite annoying, literally adding 2 minutes to the total boot time. With SATA I can just not worry about that for now.

Also, are there any 80PLUS certified Powersupplies for ITX cases? Fanless as well?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I redid my PFSense setup, now it's running on an IBM Thinkpad X40, which is an ultra portable 12" laptop. Pentium M 1.4, 512 megs, onboard Intel and a PCMCIA NIC. Nice and small, quiet, low power consumption.

 

[MooCow]

I was thinking of using a laptop to do the router setup, but always hated the idea of running an external card to add the second NIC sticking out from the side. I worked with many X40 models where I worked, they are nice laptops though. I have literally chased dual lan boards around for the past 4 years, but refused to fork out $250-$400 for a stupid little board just because it had Dual LAN capabilities and maybe an onboard compact flash reader. The intel atom really saved the day.

By the way, which CPU is faster, the 1.6 GHz atom, or the 1.4 Mhz Pentium M? Clock cycles aside, how do they compare when they are benchmarked?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I was thinking of using a laptop to do the router setup, but always hated the idea of running an external card to add the second NIC sticking out from the side. I worked with many X40 models where I worked, they are nice laptops though. I have literally chased dual lan boards around for the past 4 years, but refused to fork out $250-$400 for a stupid little board just because it had Dual LAN capabilities and maybe an onboard compact flash reader. The intel atom really saved the day.

By the way, which CPU is faster, the 1.6 GHz atom, or the 1.4 Mhz Pentium M? Clock cycles aside, how do they compare when they are benchmarked?

I'm sure the new dual core Atoms will run circles around the old Pentium M, BUT..the Pentium M still is way more than enough for PFSense for my needs, it's not like I'm running a dozen IPSec VPN tunnels across 100 meg pipes and running the ClamAV plugin.

I have some Linksys PCMCIA card which doesn't stick out too far.
I've usually used laptops in the past for my *nix router distros, back a few years ago, IBM Thinkpad T20/21/22/23 series, and then a couple of T40 models. I just replaced my T40 with this X40, since it's even smaller.

What's nice about using laptops, small footprint, quiet, fairly low power consumption compared to a full sized PC, a built in KVM so you have console right there, and....a built in battery backup!

 

[MooCow]

You have a point about the battery part... I use a T23 with a 1Ghz CPU thats connected to a USB webcam that runs outside my front door for security. When the power is out, it can still record a bit. However, the battery is completely dead, and finding a replacement battery for a T23 is a bit hard, even if I find one new, how are the battery materials inside? Made from 10 years ago? How will they still hold a charge?

And with my ITX case, I still feel it is taking way more power than it should, if I place my hand on the PSU part, its still warm, and the PSU is a generic ITX one, I never even bothered to check if it was 80+ certified, which I'm very certain it isn't.

Maybe I should have gone w/ the ITX cases with external power supplies, they are brick transformer types which I hate, but then again they don't have a fan, and probably won't get as warm as this big clunky one. Because when I first used this case, the ITX PSU smelled very bad, it had some residual manufacturing odors from it, I had to let the thing "burn in" for a week to get rid of the foul odor.

 

[Satyrist]

My old IPCOP setup:

Asus Cusi-FX (flexatx)
Celeron 533
128mb PC100/133? ECC...It was something I had laying around.
4gb Quantum bigfoot (the 5.25" variety)
Onboard SiS 10/100 (red)
3Com 3C905 PCI NIC (green)
Inwin slimline matx case

I went ahead and did a bit of an upgrade:

Asus CUSI-M (matx motherboard, SiS630 chipset)
P III 600mhz (100 FSB)--Swiftech heatsink, fanless.
768 PC133 Micron/Crucial SDRAM (1x512mb, 1x256mb)
15gb WD Caviar 5400 RPM. Sure, slow, but the way I've got it set up it hardly accesses anymore...more in a minute.
Onboard SiS 10/100 NIC (RED)
Intel 10/100 PCI NIC (GREEN)
D-Link WDA-1320 802.11ABG PCI NIC (BLUE)
300W Sparkle PSU (120mm fan)
2 lowspeed coolermaster 120mm fans, wired to run at 7v
Coolermaster Elite 341 matx case

IPCOP 1.4.21
running these addons:
RAMCOP -- http://www.sischmitz.de/en/ramcop.html
GRUBGUI -- http://www.sischmitz.de/en/grubgui.html
WLAN AP -- http://www.ban-solms.de/t/IPCop-wlanap.html

Ramcop allows for Ipcop to be loaded entirely into ram, and sets the HDD to sleep mode. I do have it set up to spin up briefly once during the early morning hours to write logs to disk, then resume to sleep mode.
Grubgui is for setting Ramcop to boot as the default option in grub.
WLAN AP is for making the box into an AP. Works nicely with the DLink since it uses an Atheros chipset, supports WEP/WPA/WPA2.

Works a lot quieter than the older setup, with the same degree of control.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

You have a point about the battery part... I use a T23 with a 1Ghz CPU thats connected to a USB webcam that runs outside my front door for security. When the power is out, it can still record a bit. However, the battery is completely dead, and finding a replacement battery for a T23 is a bit hard, even if I find one new, how are the battery materials inside? Made from 10 years ago? How will they still hold a charge?

Yeah that's the thing with old old laptops....getting replacement parts...can get expensive.
I have clients that cycle out their old laptops.

There are some places that sell "aftermarket" replacement batteries..so those batteries will be newer. But peoples experience with the quality of those can vary.

 

[MooCow]

I'm thinking of opening the battery, and finding the model # of the cells and trying to replace them myself. Its a dangerous job, could be a potential fire hazard if not done correctly. But I have seen guides online of DIY battery jobs. This could be the only option.

Satyrist: nice addon links. Can you take pics of your setup?

I'm not sure how much I could benefit from RAMcop, I know CF cards have limited writes, but I really do not care about that anymore. CF cards are cheap and easy to replace, I would rather enjoy writing to the CF card as much as possible just for shits and giggles. I'm loving the compact flash to sata adapter, the router reboots VERY FAST compared to IDE now. I'm sure my IDE problems were just a config issue w/ the BIOS and DMA, etc, but with SATA that stuff doesn't really matter anymore, I totally disabled the IDE ports in the BIOS, and set the SATA ports in legacy mode.

 

[keenan]

Here's my home router. I've deployed quite a few pfSense installations for clients, mostly using ALIX SBCs, but at home I wanted GigE and to play around with 2.0 so I built this:

Intel D945GCLF2 (Atom 330)
1GB (or maybe 2GB? don't recall, isn't important...) of spare RAM
Cheap uATX case
Intel PCI-X dual GigE
Innodisk 1GB IDE DOM
pfSense 2.0-BETA

Runs 4 VLANs to my switch for LAN stuff (open WiFi, main LAN, Lab and VoIP) plus one VLAN for one of my cable modems. For some reason the other cable modem doesn't cooperate with running from a VLAN, so I've got it directly connected to the second NIC. 1x7.5mbit cable I have dedicated to 'interactive' traffic (web/SSH/RDP etc.) and 1x15mbit cable I have dedicated to downloads. Does ~300mbit VLAN->VLAN which really isn't bad considering that's 600mbit on the PCI bus with a slow Atom CPU.

Perhaps some pics/screenies later when I'm at home

 

[Phantum]

New IPCOP machine with NEW MOTHERBOARD >>> $100 MSI board with DUAL LAN's with an Intel Atom 1.6 Solo core CPU. 1 Gig of RAM came from logic supply because they know compatibility. Via can SUCK IT with their OVERPRICED itx boards!!! CF to SATA adapter came from deal extreme, 8 Gig CF card from Amazon. Case came from Directron.

I tried to load m0n0wall but I think their installer blows, It asked for my LAN / NIC adapters to have their "link up" or active state, yet it could not detect the LAN's or if I have to go beyond the installer to get the lan active then monowall installer can suck it too. IPCOP is easier to install, but is an aging old linux distro (because it still asks you about ISDN by default). Seriously, I don't know what I did wrong with the m0n0wall install, but it did not find my LAN adapters quick enough. Is pfsense a lot better?

Which MSI board is that?

 

[keenan]

Well I seem to have lost my digicam, so no pics, but because I'm bored, here's a screenie of my pfSense dashboard. A couple oddities - the traffic graphs are apparently broken in this latest snapshot I just updated, and I was wrong - I cheaped out and bought the Atom 230 board instead. And my main WAN has an alias so I can access the cable modem web interface which shows as the 'main' IP for that interface even though it's grabbing a WAN IP.

 

[MooCow]

Which MSI board is that?

http://www.google.com/products?q=MSI+IM-945GC&oe=utf-8&hl=en&scoring=p

I got this for $100 but I can't see it for that price now... did the price go up or something?

 

[Dark Shade]

pfsense box:

Athlon64 3400+ 2.2GHz
ASUS A8V Deluxe 939 Motherboard
2GB Micron DDR266
40GB Western Digital PATA HDD
nfe0 - WAN (nForce onboard chipset)
rl0 - LAN (Realtek NIC)
dc0 - LAN (Bridged with rl0) (DLink NIC)