Re: Lightweight standalones? WAS: BlackIce Defender???

[Frédéric Haby <fhaby () freebsd-fr org>]

Patrick Oonk wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 29, 1999 at 11:21:11AM -0400, sean.kelly () lanston com wrote:
> > I've never heard of such a thing, but are there any little (desktop) 2-port
> > standalone firewalls available?  I would think with the growing popularity
> > of cable and DSL access that such a thing would be quite practical, and IMO
> > setting up a *nix-based PC for the task seems like overkill.  All it would
> > need is 2 ports, an RS-232 and some firmware.  I personally don't even have
> > any need for NAT but I would prefer to move the filtering off my PC to a
> > separate box.
> >
> > I checked the Nokia site and it seems like their low-end standalone is close
> > to what I'm describing, but I'm guessing it still costs quite a bit.
>
> Check out iproute (www.mischler.com). It runs under dos (!)
> from one floppy in as little as 1 or 2 mb ram. If you think an old 386
> takes up too much space you could build a small box using one of
> those small embedded pc boards.
> (http://www.ampro.com/products/products.htm)
>
>         p.
PicoBSD, the one floppy version (I've never done it, but you might be
able to use a DiskOnChip as well) of FreeBSD can serve that purpose. It
runs entirely in memory (will need 4/5 Mo RAM at least, or more
depending on what you'll do), and you can strip and taylor it to your
need. Mine (an AT box with a standard mainboard an to NICs, and that's
all) does PPP, NAT and IP filtering + SSH and SNMP access. DHCP could be
added.
Check out http://www.freebsd.org/~picobsd/picobsd.html. WorldAxle's
"Micro Firewall Personnal" is a ready made product built on it. You'll
find it at http://www.worldaxle.com/worldaxle_eng/nat_top.html.

F.

-- 
Frédéric Haby   <frederic.haby () mail dotcom fr>
                <fhaby () freebsd-fr org>