[clue-tech] Mini-itx and pico-itx

[Ben Klopfenstein]

On Wednesday 30 January 2008 5:57:34 pm Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> So, I was reading an article detailing someone putting together a pico-itx
> from a barebones kit, and I got to wondering about these. Right now, it
> looks a tad expensive, so I started casting around for what's up with
> mini-itx systems.
>
> I think I asked something about this before, along similar lines, but here
> goes again. I'm sure a lot has changed since back then anyway...
>
> I'd really like to find a system that was fanless, took very little wattage
> to run, and has at least two ether ports. I'd like to run something like
> Dan's Guardian on it, maybe using OpenBSD and put it between LAN and the
> cloud that is the internet. Obviously it will be always on. I thought about
> using SSD, but after looking at the price, thought I may have to hold off
> on that (16G hovering around $300 - yikes!).
>
> Has anyone built a firewall box along these lines, and do you have any
> advice?
>
> One search I did turned up something from damnsmalllinux:
>
> http://damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems/Mini_ITX_BareBones_Compute
>r

dansguardian will run on pretty much anything I have thrown it on, all you 
need is enough space for the system to run. of course performance could be an 
issue, but it runs :) i've currently got dansguardian with clamav running on 
an OLD 300mhz box in a closet, and performance is good enough i could imagine 
running it on something slower. the only caveat is that if you include the AV 
support, you want to use a system with enough space to download and 
decompress any files you might need to have scanned, as well as the virus 
definitions. I ran into a problem after a few years when the box ran out of 
space because it had filled several gigs with logfiles :)

well, thats the advice I have,

Ben