If you thought that the recently announced Mac Mini was the smallest machine you’ve ever seen, take a look at my new toy: The PC Engines WRAP. Now, granted the Mac Mini has a lot more functionality to it, but this appears to be a pretty sweet box as well. WRAP is short for Wireless Router Application Platform, which basically means that this machine is a do-it-yourself-router. I bought the 1C- 2model, which comes with:
- 266MHz NatSemi Geode processor (x86 compatible)
- 64MB of RAM
- Three LAN ports
- One MiniPCI slot (I’ve got an Atheros 802.11a/b/g card in it)
- One CompactFlash port (I’ve got a 128MB card in mine
It’s going to take over wireless from our dying Linksys 802.11g AP, and it will also take over firewalling and routing duties from the G5 at home. I’m planning on using NetBSD 2.0 with PF+ALTQ as the firewalling package, though I can always fall back onto m0n0wall if it gets tough.
Dallas pestered me about why I didn’t just buy a new wireless router from Best Buy. The primary reason is for traffic shaping, so that large file uploads and downloads don’t slow down anyones web surfing or chat, and so that unknown wireless users get less bandwidth. I think PF+ALTQ is the best open source package for shaping, but I’m always a bit iffy to run OpenBSD when I don’t have to.
Update: Fixed bad acronym pointed out by Dallas. I need some caffiene.
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January 27, 2006 at 02:47
[...] In #atlanta (EFnet) yesterday, I was talking about embedded firewall solutions, in particular m0n0wall and pfSense. I’ve been relying ...