On 2014-04-03, Rod Whitworth <glis...@witworx.com> wrote: > I've been running a couple of Soekris 5501s with an add-in 4-port > network card. > > We are looking to upgrade and I need to get a clue about suitable > hardware. > > Google is, these days, totally crap for searching things like what I > need and I'm sure there is more than one bit of kit that is running > OpenBSD/BGPd and keeping its owner happy. > > I'd like: > 8 GigE ports, serial console, Compact Flash socket, PXE bootable, 1RU > case. > > Units that should be avoided would be helpful as well as the obviously > reliable ones. > > We are not running an IX - just a busy data centre.
I'm currently using a mix of Dell R210 (2 nic onboard) and Supermicro X9SCI (4 onboard) plus multiport nics to get the desired number of ports. Hotlava 6-port boards on the R210s and (easier to obtain) duals/quads on the Supermicro. Happy with both though the Dells take quite a while to boot. I should be getting a supermicro A1SAi-2550F box from a system builder to test in a week or so, which covers most of this while using less power. 4 ports onboard and a PCIe slot so you could add a quad nic (though for my intended use 4 is enough). This is one of the newer Atom cpus, which has AES-NI and takes ECC RAM. If it works out OK I'll be using a couple more as routers, dns boxes, etc. Most of the lower-power supermicros work fine in their short-depth and front-i/o chassis, which I quite like on routers (in particular they're light enough that they can just be mounted from the front without rails without any problems). Otherwise there are some IPC system vendors like some Portwell and Nexcom who have some systems which would be suitable in this area but their distribution channels are along industrial manufacturing lines rather than what we've come to expect from PCs/servers - long lead times and they don't seem at all interested in supplying small quantities, so I have completely given up on trying to obtain them. For storage, I have used CF since the days of shoehorning a custom build into 32/64MB cards because that's all that were available, but at this point I would forget about them and just use a SATA SSD, it's easier to find systems supporting them, and the drives are much better than you'll get in CF now. My test system will have 80GB Intel SSD DC S3500 which seem very suitable for this use. I gave up using consumer CFs and only using industrial ones now (iCF innodisk) so moving from that to SSD isn't a huge jump in price and gives enough space to fit /usr/src and a reasonable amount of logs, which I find useful.
