For your trip into Italy you could get a "flat-rate" (always-on) wireless Internet connection through GSM/GPRS for only 19 Euro per month.
PROs
You don't need a landline
Coverage is all over Italy
An handset with builtin GPRS modem will cost you as low as 100 Euro including USB-to-phone cable.
ADDED BONUS
Calling home will cost you much less than using public phones or, worse yet, hotel room phones
CONs
Speed is nothing to shout about (about 43Kbps downlink)
Write to me if you want more details:
seba AT libero DOT it
1) Get:
- 1U 4bays rack mountable chassis from Sliger
Designs - 3WARE 6410
Escalade IDE controller (Choice of 0/1/0+1/5 Raid) on a 90 PCI
riser card
- 4 x 75/100GB ATA100 drives (maybe DiamondMax)
- MicroATX mainboard
with NIC and Video integrated on board (invest in RAM not in processing
power - 750/850MHZ should be more than sufficient)
- Minimum Linux/*BSD
OS booting from a read-only 16 to 64MB flash
IDE device, loading kernel and a customised Ramdisk
root filesystem, mounting Raid devices in R/W mode, starting SAMBA
(and/or Netatalk).
A good starting point is Linux Bootdisk
HOWTO
2) Choose 0+1 Raid and you get quick and completely redundant 150/200GB
storage that can survive the full failure of one disk.
3) Want remote grafical managment from a standard web browser? Go for
Webmin or SWAT.
Down here in europe, Siemens used to sell a DECT (http://www.dect-mmc.org/) modem.
You did get two external units witch you could connect to your PCs through standard RS-232 serial interfaces.
Take a look at http://www.my-siemens.com/MySiemens/CDA/Standard/F rameset/0,1649,3_GIGASETM101DATA_0_1_61_0,FF.html .
Indeed we are on a full PCI slot as we'd like to provide different implementations of this firewall/router just by installing:
A) ISDN terminal adapter.
B) V.90 internal (NON-soft)modem.
C) Sangoma (http://www.sangoma.com/) WAN cards.
D) Agere (http://www.agere.com) PCI ADSL modem (if/when drivers are avaible).
E) Possibly other solutions as well, such as PCMCIA/PCI 802.11b wireless cards.
As a matter of fact, we'll be using something based on LRP 2.9.4.
We also had a look at FREESCO (http://www.freesco.org), but LRP is probably better expanded to suit our needs.
One thing of FREESCO I appreciated much is web control panel.
Slashdot Mirror
Try THINSTATION http://thinstation.sf.net/.
It is a complete Linux distro that can be used as a RDP "thin terminal" (does also support ICA, Tarantella, XDM, VNC etc.).
Thinstation can boot on diskless terminals (Etherbot/PXE), but also from floppy, CD, HD or Compact Flash IDE devices.
133Mhz CPU and 16/32Mb RAM should be good enough.
For your trip into Italy you could get a "flat-rate" (always-on) wireless Internet connection through GSM/GPRS for only 19 Euro per month.
PROs
You don't need a landline
Coverage is all over Italy
An handset with builtin GPRS modem will cost you as low as 100 Euro including USB-to-phone cable.
ADDED BONUS
Calling home will cost you much less than using public phones or, worse yet, hotel room phones
CONs
Speed is nothing to shout about (about 43Kbps downlink)
Write to me if you want more details:
seba AT libero DOT it
More than a hundred PCs on the same network segment and you are looking for big trouble and slowness from broadcast storms.
Go for Variable Length Subnet Mask and deploy VLANs containing not more than 40/60 clients each.
Use DHCP-assigned 10.0.0.0/24 subnets.
This way you can even aggregate subnets for wan or site-to-site routing.
Example:
Site-1 / VLAN-1 > 10.1.1.0/24
Site-1 / VLAN-2 > 10.1.2.0/24
Site-1 / VLAN-3 > 10.1.3.0/24
Site-2 / VLAN-1 > 10.2.1.0/24
Site-2 / VLAN-2 > 10.2.2.0/24
Site-2 / VLAN-3 > 10.2.3.0/24
Site-3 / VLAN-1 > 10.3.1.0/24
Site-3 / VLAN-2 > 10.3.2.0/24
Site-3 / VLAN-3 > 10.3.3.0/24
Site-1 as a whole is seen as 10.1.0.0/16
Site-2 as a whole is seen as 10.2.0.0/16
Site-3 as a whole is seen as 10.3.0.0/16
Down here in Italy a medieval village in Liguria region has been completely restorated to original form.
In the process a full fiber local loop (plus other goodies such as CATV & cordless "walkaround" phone system) has been installed.
Take a look here and read the technical overview about infrastructure.
This is my receipe for an "homebrew" Snap4100
1) Get:
- 1U 4bays rack mountable chassis from Sliger Designs
- 3WARE 6410 Escalade IDE controller (Choice of 0/1/0+1/5 Raid) on a 90 PCI riser card
- 4 x 75/100GB ATA100 drives (maybe DiamondMax)
- MicroATX mainboard with NIC and Video integrated on board (invest in RAM not in processing power - 750/850MHZ should be more than sufficient)
- Minimum Linux/*BSD OS booting from a read-only 16 to 64MB flash IDE device, loading kernel and a customised Ramdisk root filesystem, mounting Raid devices in R/W mode, starting SAMBA (and/or Netatalk).
A good starting point is Linux Bootdisk HOWTO
2) Choose 0+1 Raid and you get quick and completely redundant 150/200GB storage that can survive the full failure of one disk.
3) Want remote grafical managment from a standard web browser? Go for Webmin or SWAT.
Down here in europe, Siemens used to sell a DECT (http://www.dect-mmc.org/) modem. You did get two external units witch you could connect to your PCs through standard RS-232 serial interfaces. Take a look at http://www.my-siemens.com/MySiemens/CDA/Standard/F rameset/0,1649,3_GIGASETM101DATA_0_1_61_0,FF.html .
Hi djweis, that would be much helpful, thanx a lot!
Feel free to contact me by e-m@il: seba AT libero DOT it
Well, this could certainly be an useful point.
Trouble is: how can I find out who's the original producer of IGEL hardware?
As far as book-PCs go, am I wrong or they don't have any PCI slot?
Had a look at NET-4501 when first announced on small-BSD mailing list (still have the original message from Soren Kristensen).
Unfortunatey we're looking 4 somenthing with a little bit more processing power.
Indeed we are on a full PCI slot as we'd like to provide different implementations of this firewall/router just by installing:
.
A) ISDN terminal adapter.
B) V.90 internal (NON-soft)modem.
C) Sangoma (http://www.sangoma.com/) WAN cards.
D) Agere (http://www.agere.com) PCI ADSL modem (if/when drivers are avaible).
E) Possibly other solutions as well, such as PCMCIA/PCI 802.11b wireless cards
As a matter of fact, we'll be using something based on LRP 2.9.4. We also had a look at FREESCO (http://www.freesco.org), but LRP is probably better expanded to suit our needs. One thing of FREESCO I appreciated much is web control panel.