Ever since we built the relatively low-tech Nagios blinkenlights I’ve been dreaming of something a bit more state of the art – something self- sufficient. I bought myself a late (or early) Christmas present: an ALIX board. Michael had suggested an eBox 2300SX costing about EUR 140.00, but I opted for an ALIX.2D3, which is a bit cheaper at EUR 120.00. It comes with 256MB of RAM and 3 NIC interfaces, can PXE boot, but it doesn’t have VGA. (ALIX prices start at EUR 95.00 for a model with 128MB RAM and 1 NIC.) I ordered mine at Varia complete with a case. (Excellent and prompt service!) The board is going to serve two purposes:

1. Determine if it (or one of the cheaper models) will suffice my needs (Ethernet and USB).
2. Find out how well IPcop (or m0n0wall) will run on it, because an in-law wants to have a firewall on his network – a bit more than what a DSL router does.

I won’t be bored on the weekend. :-)