[nycbug-talk] Richard Beijtlich on replacing his Soekris. . .

[Isaac Levy]

Hey All,

On Jan 28, 2006, at 12:14 AM, michael wrote:

> On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:45:55 -0500
> "George R." <george at sddi.net> wrote:
>
>> The interesting (and standard) questions are asked . . .
>>
>> http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2006/01/soekris-dies-what- 
>> replacement.html
>>
>> MW: send us a link again on your dual CF card unit. . .
>>
>> g

As an aside, all the PFSync guys had highly praised the WRAP boards,

http://www.pcengines.ch/

Cheaper than Soekris by a signifigant chunk, which adds up if your  
buying them in bulk...

Also, the cases and misc. for them are a bit more geared for VAR/ 
Integrators, blank and ready to slap a logo sticker on them.
For prices etc..., check the vendors section of the url above.

I haven't touched them (yet), so I can't speak first hand- and I have  
had really solid experiences with Soekris... So...  I'm torn between  
price, and something I *know* works well.


>
> I like via boards. I used 2 pd10000 boards side-by-side in a 1u case
> for a failover firewall.

OK- MW- big question here:

What do you do when one of the boards fails?  I mean, I know the  
other board is taking the load, but how do you go about replacing the  
failed board- and keep everything online?

--
Here's what I'm doing, to similar effect:

I got one of these,
http://www.racksolutions.com/sliding-shelves-rack-mount.shtml

And I've simply put the soekris machines on the shelf.
This way, I can get in and remove/replace/service the soekris boards,  
without affecting network connectivity.

--
Here's what I *really* want, in a more ideal world:

Some kind of 1u backplane/drawer-like setup, something which lets me  
pull out boards in little drawers that are physically isolated,  
mounted in 1u.
Basically, I'm looking for a 1u box with 2 drawers on the front, and  
clean ways to get wires and mount things on the front and back.   
(When I say mount things I mean things like serial port extensions,  
power supply jacks, perhaps a small 1u fan in each drawer, etc...)

It'd be great if it fit a mini-itx board, so then one could put  
whatever size/breed of board in the thing.

(If anyone knows any decent sheetmetal fabricators, please contact me!)

--
Other possible solution:

Does anyone know any urls to surplus telco equpment?  They have tons  
of things like this, all modular plug-in units for telco operations,  
and with a quick gutting of the interior, the cases may be really  
useful in this kind of application...


> I used CF but it can take a HD.  It looks like
> via has a new board (vt-310dp) out now with 3 nics (one is gig) that
> I'm sure would fit into a small, soekris style case. I actually bought
> the above rackmount from caseoutlet.com. It looks like they stock a  
> lot
> of different cases.
>
> http://caseoutlet.com/via-mb.html
>
> I know Marc and Yarema have been talking about the new boards, too.

Niiiice.  Thanks for the links MW!

Rocket-
.ike