Slashdot Mirror
Build a Cisco PIX for 800 Australian Dollars
tallguy_wt writes: "Why fork out thousands of dollars to learn Cisco's PIX firewalling product when you can build your own for under 800 Australian Dollars, as shown in this article by Routermonkey."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
How much better is Cisco than the same system running Linux or *BSD?
If you want to build your own one, you could as well do the same using things available under open source so that visitors from Cisco do not have to call Yevgeni and Boris to teach beat you up. ;)
Well, I can understand that learning the PIX in detail might be a good and interesting reason to build it up, instead of spending $15 000 or more in it.
Details on how to do this surfaced on some cisco study boards 12-18 months ago. Most of the people on the board were interested in this to be able to add a Pix to thier home study lab. Groupstudy had a very long thread on this. They were dubbed the 'FrankenPix'
Cisco is very well represented on the board, and they never said a word to anybody about not doing this, and sort of allowed it to happen.
On the other hand, when FrankenPix's started appearing on eBay, they cracked down, hard and quick. But, to this day, they still haven't said anything during the discussions o the cisco study boards.
My view on this is they really don't care if people build FrankenPix's for home study, after all, that's just going to help sell more Pix in the long run. (Checkpoint, afterall, will gladly give you 30-day trail licenses for FireWall-1 for home study) But, if you try to build and sell these, they WILL get you. (And honestly, if you want to use these boxes in a professional enviorment for day-to-day usage, you are asking for trouble.)
--dirt
I guess there is a lot of people who have been playing with ipfw, iptables, ipchains etc
And would realy, sincerely, like to know:
What can I do with a Cisco PIX that I can't do with Linux and IPTables ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Look, there's plenty of reasons why a company would want to purchase a PIX from Cisco. Many have been outlined in postings already
A student wishing to practice configuring a PIX would benefit greatly from this information. They obviously wouldn't be able to afford a full PIX, so putting together a test box is their only choice.
As far as I'm concerned, this info can only benefit Cisco, as they get a whole bunch of people that know their product inside out. That then tips over into increased sales, as these people recommend using a PIX to their boss.
DeeK
I work at Cisco, things are tough right now. The company is making money but did you know that they haven't given raises to their employees in two years? Did you know that plan on going at least one more before they give out a raise?
Did you know that they have cut promotions to 3% per year? I'll do that math for you. As a Cisco employee you can expect a promotion every 33 years. Not that it matters because if you do get promoted all you get are stock options with no raise.
Did you know that they have their "active management" guns blaring at full speed? This means that the managers are forced to cut 5% of their staff every quarter. (In fairness, they seem to actually cut less than that). However, they have certainly reduced their staff by over 20% in the past two years. There aren't any slackers left at the company.
Thank you for handing out information regarding how to steal our products.
Vanguard
--------------------
I understand that some of have it even worse. Some of you are not employed at all. I feel for you.
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier