If someone hasn't already mentioned it : Lanner http://www.lannerinc.com/

On 19 December 2016 at 18:08, Aaron Mason <simplersolut...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for some additional fleabay search terms :)
>
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Nick Holland
> <n...@holland-consulting.net> wrote:
> > On 12/14/16 20:39, Aaron Mason wrote:
> >> All
> >>
> >> I'm looking for a 1U appliance that I can re-purpose into a firewall
> >> using OpenBSD.  I've tried the near-free method by using an old Lacie
> >> Ethernet Disk appliance I had lying around, but it turns out the
> >> onboard SATA chipset is toast on this particular unit (it freezes at
> >> CDBOOT when it detects hard drives and the BIOS freezes when I set it
> >> to IDE mode with drives attached, plus it only has one onboard NIC and
> >> one PCI slot, so I can't install another SATA card without removing
> >> the other NIC I installed), so I'm looking for other options that fit
> >> a limited budget.
> >
> > heh.  Little secret: if you look in many data centers, you will find
> > lots of 1U boxes with various titles -- security appliances, load
> > balancing devices, etc.  A lot of them, under the covers, are just PCs.
> > And a lot of data centers have 'em rotting on the racks after they have
> > been turned off and replaced, but no motivation to remove them.
> >
> > Just cleaned out some stuff from one of our data centers -- we had a
> > three authentication devices and a couple "security appliances" that all
> > turned out to have the same SuperMicro board on them...some with Pentium
> > D, others with P4s...but both could pump a lot of packets through
> > gigabit NICs (two on board).  The security appliances were kinda cool in
> > that they have a LCD screen that looks like it could be accessed through
> > a USB serial port (better yet, when you powered up the box, the LCD
> > panel put up an advertisement, not for the security appliance maker, but
> > for the LCD panel...including a website.  Bet there are docs there! :)
> > (I once programmed the LCD panel of a Novell server to say, "WINDOWS
> > SUCKS".  Wasn't noticed for years, but when it was, my name was quickly
> > assumed as being responsible)
> >
> > We also had a couple odd little "load balancers" -- five NIC ports.  My
> > coworkers were skeptical about it being a standard PC under the cover.
> > Haven't tried to boot OpenBSD on them yet, but turns out the thing has a
> > 128M SATA DiskOnModule (flash memory on a SATA board), a 1G CF card, and
> > a SATA hard disk in the box.  Again, all in one U.
> >
> > And I'll admit there's a certain fun in bringing up another OS on
> > something like that.  And I HAVE to at least try to bring up OpenBSD on
> > them...so I can wipe the media before the hw is disposed of.  (Company
> > policy says "overwrite entire disk with random data", who's got the
> > fastest random number generator in town?  OpenBSD, of course!)
> >
> > Nick.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Aaron Mason - Programmer, open source addict
> I've taken my software vows - for beta or for worse

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