Step 1 - Find a Barracuda Firewall
Step 2 - Open it Up and Look Inside
Step 3 - ???
Step 4 - Profit! $$
OK, now that I've pulled my "geek" out and thrown it on the table... As I stated in my previous post, I'm in the process of building a FreeNAS server for my house. However; since I'm waiting on some parts, I thought it would be fun to take a part an old Barracuda Firewall 210 and see what I could do with it. Then it occured to me... Monowall! I'll turn an old Barracuda firewall into a Monowall server! :)
So I began the process of going through the system. Now, the 210 has a 40 GB "Barracuda" hard drive (cute, huh?), 256MB of RAM, and 3 NICS. The BIOS is a Phoenix Award BIOS. Thanks to this site, I was able to hack the BIOS and unlock the USB as a boot device.
So, I bust out with my trusty Ubuntu Live CD, install it into my iOmega USB CD Burner, and boot 'er up! Now, with 256 MB of RAM, this thing runs Ubuntu like a dog. It's extremely slow. Luckily, it has PC2700 DDR RAM, so it's relatively easy to come by on eBay, in fact you can get 1GB for less than $40 including shipping!
I did have to pull the original hard drive and drop another 40GB Barracuda in the system, since I couldn't get Ubuntu to rebuild the partition data. But, we got Ubuntu installed and it recognized the onboard NIC without any issues.
So here's my next step in the process. I'm going to get 2GB of RAM, another IDE/CF hard drive (probably around 256 MB), and maybe re-config the existing NIC's so that I can setup according to Monowall's recommended setup.
I'm still doing the FreeNAS server, although I'm kind of rethinking the original idea. I might go ahead and put it in an old rack mount server chasis I have sitting in my garage. I also need to seriously do something about my Dell 600 SC servers. They're way too freakin' loud to have in my home office. Anybody know of any good, quite servers out there?
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3 comments:
So you upgraded the ram, changed the HDD and are planning to put it into a new case. Seems to me for the price of a used mobo and proc you could have just build a PC and not had to hack the 'cuda.
Fun project though if you have a 'cuda laying around without sub to energize updates...
Actually, the two things are not one in the same. The 'Cuda is sitting in my closet right now, doing nothing.
I was talking about building a FreeNAS server in another chasis, but have decided to just go with a BAHD in my desktop instead and use my exteranal HD for backup. FreeNAS is pretty cool, but I decided against maintaining yet another computer.
Thanks for commenting though. This has turned out to be my single most popular article. ;)
My friend and I were recently talking about technology, and how integrated it has become to our daily lives. Reading this post makes me think back to that discussion we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside... I just hope that as the price of memory drops, the possibility of transferring our memories onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's one of the things I really wish I could encounter in my lifetime.
(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://knol.google.com/k/anonymous/-/9v7ff0hnkzef/1]R4i[/url] DS FFOpera)
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