[PLUG] Low cost fileserver

[Kris]

Jeme A Brelin wrote:
>> I'm going to replace my aging full size firewall with one of these and a 
>> pair of USB drives (or possibly compact flash/usb flash drives).
> 
> It only lists one ethernet.  How are you goinng to use it as a firewall? 
> USB ethernet?

802.1q trunking is worth the cost savings of having to get a 2-eth
version (say, the 3852, which is $250).

>> I'm pretty sure they'll handle a full OS install with no hacking. 
>> We're soon going to be using 60 of them as thin clients for a edubuntu 
>> LTSP lab at a high school.
> 
> These look pretty good.  I'm a little curious what the install procedure 
> would be like having only a CF.  Would I have to make a bootable flash 
> card and go from there?  Would I have to set up some kind of TFTP boot 
> server?

When I installed Debian 4.0 on a 3853, I used a USB cdrom drive and the
compact flash disk was detected as a regular disk (I can't remember if
SCSI or IDE).  Installed like a normal HD, no issues.

-- 
I'm just a packet pusher.