[Soekris] Want to build a router

[jmc]

--- Stephen Brown [Thu, May 22, 2008 at 07:46:24PM -0400]: --- 
> Well I'm looking to get away from my old PC and jump into an embedded 
> platform because I think it will be challenging, fun and educational 
> while fullfilling a need at the same time, and I already have a 
> dedicated switch so the 4 port card wouldn't help me.

amen, brother. all about the hack.

if you want challenging, fun and educational, get the 5501, find a 4801,
doesn't matter, get a Soekris box with some rj45 ports and install
OpenBSD. configure and run a filtering bridge.

you'll learn all kinds of really cool things about layer 2, and from
there you just work your way up the stack. and you'll be doing on a
4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system.

how's that for challenging, fun and educational?

> I have been running Smoothwall for a couple of years now with no 
> hiccups, but would really like to try out building my own. The Net5501 
> looks like a nice platform, but it's not cheap and I want to justify the 
> costs, not sure if I would take full advantage of all it's capabilities.

well only you can decide how much you want to spend, but remember it's
all in the name of education...