Revised server plans
The imminent inclusion of a second Sun Ultra 5, the recent addition of a Dell Poweredge 1400SC, the added support of the Adaptec 2940U SCSI controller card by OpenBSD and the planned retirement of the horrendously noisy and weighty Dell Poweredge 4200/266, have forced me to revise my original plans for the network. It promises to be a more robust and powerful combination of machines, each better suited to their particular roles. Here are the machines and their specifications again, which might change slightly but shouldn't actully see any further additions, just reallocation of hardware from one machine to another.
Server oriented
- Sun Ultra 5 - UltraSparc2i@400MHz - 256MB RAM - 40GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD - WWW server
- Dell Poweredge 1400SC - Intel P3@933MHz - 640MB RAM - 17GB & 9GB 10Krpm SCSI - O/S: OpenBSD - Database server
- Sun Ultra 5 - UltraSparc2i@400MHz - 256MB RAM - 40GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD - pf firewall
- Homebrew PC - Intel P3@750MHz - 256MB RAM - 40GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD - pf firewall
- Compaq Deskpro - Intel P3@600MHz - 512MB RAM - 160GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD - LAN multi-role server
- Homebrew PC - Intel P3@450MHz 256MB RAM - 40GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD - DMZ NIDS
- Homebrew PC - Intel P2@350MHz - 192MB RAM - 6.5GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD - DMZ DNS / Mail relay
Desktop / Workstation oriented
- Homebrew PC - AMD AthlonXP 2600+ - 768MB RAM - 60GB IDE - O/S: Windows XP
- HP Vectra - P3@800MHz - 256MB RAM - 10GB IDE - O/S: Linux
- HP Vectra - P3@800MHz - 256MB RAM - 10GB IDE - O/S: Linux
- Homebrew PC - Via c3@600MHz - 512MB RAM - 60GB IDE - O/S: Linux
- Dell Latitude c840 - Intel P4@2GHz - 512MB RAM - 60GB IDE - O/S: OpenBSD
Horses for courses
I've planned to make my Internet facing firewall a Sun UltraSparc based machine for some time, hence why I have opted to get another one of these excellent computers. I want to continue to use a Sun UltraSparc as my web server, for outright reliability. Now that OpenBSD supports the Adaptec 2940U cards, I can fit one into the Sun that gets used as the web server, speeding up disk access. The Poweredge 1400SC, with fast(ish) SCSI hard disks and 640MB RAM will be a dedicated database server, primarily to be a backend for the web server and accessible from selected machines on my LAN.
A reasonably quick machine to firewall my internal LAN from the web and DMZ and as said already, there will be an Ultra 5 between that firewall and the web anyway. The Compaq Deskpro will be the LAN server and internal mail server. I have an old P3-450MHz machine which has a flaky AGP slot, so this will be used to monitor the DMZ from here onwards, with the slowest machine here, a P2-350MHz acting as a DNS server and mail relay for the DMZ.
The two HP Vectras are for two of the children to use, the AthlonXP is for the eldest. My wife uses the Mini-ITX Via c3 machine and I use the Dell Latitude laptop. Only the youngest doesn't have a computer of her own, but that's hardly surprising as she is only ten months old!
The Dell Poweredge 4200/266, my only dual processor machine is just too noisy and too power hungry to continue, in my opinion. It is being salvaged for parts these days, which is where the SCSI hard disks are coming from. The motherboard, processors, RAM and industrial 750W PSU will be listed on the web site and off-loaded by some means or another.
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