Re: Recommendations for small NetBSD network box

[Andy Ruhl <acruhl%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 2:22 PM, David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost> wrote:
> Apologies for cross posting to three pretty generic CPU lists, but I'm
> hoping the answer lies with the expertise reading this now :)
>
> I'm looking for a small box to act as a NAT & low traffic VPN device.
>
> Requirements are pretty simple:
> - At least two Ethernet interfaces (100base fine)
> - Enough RAM to to run NAT (probably pf), and IPSEC or OpenVPN
> (fortunately not both) for up to about 50 web (or weblike) clients &
> sshd
> - Small (sub mini-itx), and cased (looks like a product)
> - USB port to plug in a 3G dongle would be nice.
>
> I could obviously easily find something running Linux, but I'd prefer
> to have it running NetBSD.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions?

I'm running NetBSD-current and ipsec between 2 Seagate Dockstar
machines. I have not tried pf or using this machine as a gateway, but
I need to at some point. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

The Dockstar doesn't meet your requirement for ethernet ports, but
they have 3 USB ports so you might be able to make up for it. I
haven't tried a wired ethernet adapter in it yet, but I have used a
wifi adapter.

They only have 128 megs of memory. This seems like plenty for what I'm
doing but I suppose it would be small for some production
environments.

Andy