[ale] Firewall discussion...hardware horsepower?

[Dow Hurst]

Chris Woodfield wrote:

> As an adjunct to the firewall discussion, I'm looking at upgrading 
> mine...I'm currently running a Via EDEN 500 based box which does 
> strict packet filtering and connection tracking fine, but starts to 
> have issues when I turn on any sort of packet logging and/or IDS. I 
> also would like something I can rackmount in a 1U case.
>
> Obviously I don't need a 3 GHz Pentium 4 and a gig a RAM for this; 
> would would be the minimum suggested system to use here? I'm basically 
> looking to run iptables in a one-to-one NAT config for some hosts and 
> one-to-many NAT for others, and do blocked packet logging, snort, and 
> some small servers (DHCP, SNMP for generating MRTG graphs, and 
> possibly a SOCKS proxypot as well).
>
> Also, suggestions for cheap 1U rackmount cases are welcome as well 
> (I'm leaning towards SuperMicro's SC512)...
>
>  Thanks for the input,
>
> -Chris
>
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Have you checked with hdparm your disk throughput?  I am curious too as 
to why you are having performance issues.  Is it disk or is it CPU related?
Dow