Re: RFC on hardware to be bought (FSC Primergy?)

[Nick Holland <nick_(_at_)_holland-consulting_(_dot_)_net>]

Sascha Schnitzler wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> our long time running obsd-fw has to be replaced by a new one.
> The hardware in focus is a FSC Primergy Economy 50 
> (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/sme/products/intel_servers/economy/primergy_econel_50.html)
>   - maybe someone has expierences with this HW and can mail me the 
> results of getting obsd running on that box (other experiences with FSC 
> hardware are welcome to)
> 
> question is: onboard LAN is a BCM5751, the obsd-site tells me that it 
> supports BCM570x, not a word about the 5751. Anyone got that chip 
> running? how about it's performance? does it scale well?
> since the system will be a firewall, i need two extra nics. any 
> recommendation? 3com? intel? i need the fw (will be a transparent bridge 
>   with one managment interface to be precise) to handle >1.000 
> connections at a time..

In addition to Henning's statements...

"Onboard RAID" seems to be another way to say "Software RAID", which is
another way of saying, "Not supported by OpenBSD in the way you expect".
 So that aspect is going to be a serious dissapointment for you.  (If
that's your goal, give thought to two smaller, cheaper boxes and CARPing
them).

All in all, looks like a really big, over-powered, probably overly
expensive box to use as a firewall.  Nothing about that box causes me to
think, "Wow, I'd love to make a firewall out of that!".

Nick.