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:
- Determine if it (or one of the cheaper models) will suffice my needs (Ethernet and USB).
- 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. :-)