> -----Original Message----- > Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 6:29 PM > To: leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: Re: [leaf-user] The old floppy question > > >Lets make a poll to find out how many of us are booting bering from a > >floppy and decide from there. > > I still favor & use Bering 1.2 floppies. I like the security of the > write-protect slider. And part of the idea about Linux, and Bering > firewalls in particular, is repurposing old hardware for a new & useful > task. It's not so hard to find boxes of an appropriate horsepower for the > task that came with floppies.
My production firewall boxen are still running off diskettes. The downside compared with a CF/IDE box I use for testing is (1) slower boot and (2) limited space for packages. But as long as the required packages fit on a diskette, this is just not an issue for a firewall that reboots maybe a couple of times a year. I have access to a virtually unlimited supply of P3 desktops with diskette drives. These have plenty of horsepower for a firewall. My production setup has an identical spare sitting on top of the running firewall with a copy of the diskette in the drive and instructions to move the Ethernet cables and and power cord to the spare should anything happen. There is no display, no keyboard, no mouse and the IDE disk is disconnected. The BIOS is configured to boot whenever power is restored. This provides a very high level of redundancy, essentially at no cost. There are many other ways to achieve this. But this solution is so simple and straightforward to understand and implement that I can see no reason to change. I believe diskette based LEAF routers will live a long life because once you get one set up and configured there is rarely a good reason to mess with it unless something breaks or until the needs change. Bottom line: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Cheers, -Bob ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ leaf-user mailing list: leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user Support Request -- http://leaf-project.org/
