From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 19 20:30:31 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B73B516A40A for ; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:30:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (lurza.secnetix.de [83.120.8.8]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37C1D13C471 for ; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:30:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (burahs@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id l0JKUNAr059141; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:30:29 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from oliver.fromme@secnetix.de) Received: (from olli@localhost) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.13.4/8.13.1/Submit) id l0JKUN9v059140; Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:30:23 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from olli) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:30:23 +0100 (CET) Message-Id: <200701192030.l0JKUN9v059140@lurza.secnetix.de> From: Oliver Fromme To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, deeptech71@gmail.com In-Reply-To: <45B00728.5050207@gmail.com> X-Newsgroups: list.freebsd-chat User-Agent: tin/1.8.2-20060425 ("Shillay") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.11-STABLE (i386)) X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.1.2 (lurza.secnetix.de [127.0.0.1]); Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:30:29 +0100 (CET) Cc: Subject: Re: what can i do with a 486? X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, deeptech71@gmail.com List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:30:31 -0000 deeptech71@gmail.com wrote: > So.. couple of days ago I've picked up a 486 box from someone's trashcan. > Seems to work. Some details: > > an old board of some kind (intel) > i486SX 33MHz processor Ypu're out of luck then. Recent versions of FreeBSD require floating-point support to be present, which a 486SX doesn't have. You must have at least a 486DX processor, I'm afraid. Or install an old version of FreeBSD which will emulate FP instructions, but then you don't have security support anymore, which means it's probably a bad idea to connect the machine to the internet, i.e. you shouldn't use it as a router. > 8MB of ram 8 MB isn't much. You won'te be able to run sysinstall with it, and a standard kernel won't be much fun either. But it should be OK with a smaller custom kernel. > a PCI-like slot (is it ISA maybe?), Could be ISA or EISA. Also, in those days VLB slots (Vesa Local Bus) had some popularity, which were basically a 16bit ISA slot plus an extra connector. > Does routing need a lot of RAM? No, routing doesn't need much RAM. At least, not if it's only for a small uplink at home. > What packet throughput speed can I expect when > it's juggling data between RAM and HDD? For packet routing, you don't want the HDD to be involved at all, I'm sure. :-) > But doesn't FreeBSD configure things for specific hardware > when installed on one computer? And does it work if > install on a new generation 386? The standard FreeBSD/i386 installation will work on all supported x86 machines, from a 486DX upwards. > A quality hardware router, or a FreeBSD router? Both have advantages and disadvantages. Different people have different opinions on that matter. Personally I prefer to use a FreeBSD machine as a router, because I dislike "black boxes". You never know what bugs and security issues they might have, and many vendors are not particularly quick when a security hole needs to be fixed. It's not a very good feeling when you know that exploits are circulating in the net and your vendor doesn't provide a new firware for your box. The FreeBSD security folks are usually very quick in providing security advisories and patches, and if you know a bit about C programming, you can even fix things yourself. Heck, even the fact that you _can_ look at the source code if you want is very big plus for FreeBSD. Another plus is the packet filtering. While most hardware routers also provide some packet filtering mechanisms, FreeBSD's IPFW and PF are much more flexible and provide better control of your network traffic. And last but not least, you can let the machine do other things beside routing and filtering if you need to. You need to run a name server? Enable BIND. An NTP server to synchronise the time of your machines? Run ntpd. How about a printer spooler? A VPN gateway? A small http proxy that removes ads from web pages? And so on and on ... Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "Clear perl code is better than unclear awk code; but NOTHING comes close to unclear perl code" (taken from comp.lang.awk FAQ)