[Info-vax] vtAlpha and marketing bullshit

[Paul Sture]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:41:59 +0000, ChrisQ wrote:

> On 12/22/11 13:24, Paul Sture wrote:
> 
> 
>> At the moment, having some fun learning about this stuff is the main
>> point for me. I'd forgotten about pfsense but have had favourable
>> reports from folks I know.
> 
> Have been using pfsense for about a year now and have just built up
> another machine for the latest version, which also seems ok. Compared to
> ipcop, there are a lot more setup options (parameters I had never heard
> of) and pages in the gui, so you need to think a bit more about what
> you are doing to get the best results.
>
> Nothing gets through other than the lan gui by default, so you need to
> set up a few rules to talk to anything external. Compared to ipcop, the
> time scheduling is more intuitive and snag free. One thing I did use on
> ipcop was the url filter addon, which uses a free third party list to
> filter out various categories (violence, porn, gambling etc), stuff
> unsuitable for the family. The kids have always had their own machine,
> which I don't audit, but felt filtering appropriate when they were
> younger. Haven't looked to see if it will run on pfsense, but later
> perhaps.
>
> Initial setup is trivial, 10 minutes: Plug in as many network cards as
> needed, just about any type of network card, boot the cd distro and
> follow the instructions. Change the default lan ip etc to something on
> your lan, then log in from a browser to do the post install and set
> some rules. The snort packet inspection addon works on both, btw
> with free rule lists via snort.org.

Useful pointers, thanks.  Santa brought me an HP Microserver for 
Christmas, so now I have a decent up to date system as a spare to play 
with (I have found that there is only so far you can go in exploring the 
more advanced features of Linux, FreeBSD etc with older kit).

I've been seeing the HP Microserver as a popular choice for small 
business servers for a while now, with 100 USD / Pounds Sterling cashback 
offers in the US/UK respectively and the price in my country finally got 
down to the point where it looked very attractive indeed. I haven't had 
time to do much with it yet, but it's a very nicely put together piece of 
kit, and shows what HP is capable of if they put their mind to it.

> 
>> But my original comment wasn't restricted to firewalls.  I am also
>> interested in backup and NAS solutions using various tools out there. 
>> I have a feeling Santa is going to bring me extra kit to play in that
>> area shortly :-)
>>
>>
> Something to keep you busy over the holidays, once you've had enough
> turkey, trash tv and excess :-).

No turkey here! It was turkey all the way when my mother was still alive, 
and the memories of turkey salad, turkey sandwiches, turkey broth and 
turkey curries for days afterwards put me off doing my own :-)

> Have a good one...

Same to you...

P.S. I put my own choices for "holiday projects" up at the link below. I 
thought it was time for some refresher tutorials on bits of *nix and put 
this collection together:

"Holiday projects: git, Vim and Bash Scripting revisited, oh regex too"

http://www.sture.ch/node/188


-- 
Paul Sture