[Soekris] m0n0wall alternatives?

[Jim Thompson]

Rob Flickenger wrote:
> On Oct 28, 2004, at 5:15 PM, Christopher Snell wrote:
> 
>> I'm working on a project to design an equivalent of m0n0wall, but
>> based on OpenBSD with pf.  I know you said "no Perl" but I think you
>> shouldn't be so close-minded.  It is certainly possible to do
>> lightweight web configuration with Perl.
> 
> 
> I think we need to come to an agreement on the definition of 
> "lightweight".  I'd be very surprised if you could fit POE and all of 
> its dependencies (including perl itself) in anything less than a couple 
> of MB.  For comparison, the perl and standard libraries on the default 
> Pebble install is roughly 12MB, without POE.  How big would you guess 
> your package will be?

Last time I tried, Perl was about 3MB for just the main binary.  There 
are alternatives (miniperl, etc), but these may or may not run the 
application in-question.

Of course, last time I tried was @ Musenki (specifically to run NoCat), 
but I've long since set my mind about "embedded perl". Just say No.

http://lists.nocat.net/pipermail/nocat/2002-April/001352.html

> I imagine David is looking for a solution in the tens- to hundreds of 
> KB.  Of course, some embedded folks I know think anything written in 
> anything but assembler and taking up more than 2 or 3KB is huge.

They also think that any part that costs more than $3 is a complete 
rip-off.  Ethernet and 32-bit processors are a major 
revelation/revolution to them. They can have with their 8051s and 6800s.

> Unfortunately, I don't have a good suggestion.  Building something on 
> thttpd with C or shell based CGI config tools should be pretty 
> straightforward, but I haven't seen it yet.

One of the things you could do is spit out a set of variables to a file. 
  The various RC/startup files on netbsd (and freebsd) are particularity 
suited to this.   The web server could suck-in the existing setup, and 
then the various CGIs (or some in-process equalent) could modify the 
in-core version.

Pressing a button marked "write flash" (save config, whatever) could 
check for obvious errors, and then write the file.

The goahead webserver as used in several small 802.11 products works 
like this.  http://webserver.goahead.com/webserver/webserver.htm

Jim