Project: Router from the Abyss + IT LIVES! 11.08.04 Update!

[SpeeDj]

Alright so here I've been sitting for far too long on this homegrown router. I think that about the only way I will begin to get some serious work done on this is to start a Project Log. I will start off with the fundamentals of what I want to accomplish with this Project.

Hardware Specs: Currently in posession of the following...
* Intel PIII 833
* Mobo - Integrated Vid/Sound/Lan (No name, says Toshiba on the BIOS Screen - Compgeeks special)
* 512MB PC150 TinyBGA Kingmax Ram
* 30GB Maxtor HD
* 3Com PCI NIC
* PCI Angle Riser
* 1U 200Watt PSU
* Slimline Copper heatsink (1U Compliant)
* Slotload DVD Rom - Install only then disconnected
* Slimline 1U Height desktop case (Formerly AT or custom)
Needed for completion: The following is required to finish...
* Small < 8 Port 10/100 Switch (To integrate in the case)
* Wireless access point (Don't need any additional ports other than an uplink)
* UPS of some sort (Enough to survive short power outages)
* Switches, connectors (various)
* Paint (Black, because beige is out)
OS Requirements: Gentoo with the following...
* SSH - For remote config
* Webmin - Also for remote config
* Apache - For web development
* MRTG - For traffic monitoring
* Shorewall - Firewall of some sort
* BNC - For IRC purposes
* Samba - For file sharing
* FTP - For remote file access
* More possibly to come but Linux is flexible and robust enough

Project Goals: To replace my current router setup of a PII 400 with a small hard drive and running mandrake 9. To learn more about Gentoo and also give myself experience with wireless lan configuration. Things I would like to try are doing multiple IP schemes such as the wired side of the Home is 10.1.x.x and the wireless side of the Home is 10.2.x.x. Would also like to configure and use Samba and some other things to enable me to work with the router faster as it does much more than route. The reason why I am going with a full distro instead of something like Smoothwall which is very limited in it's functions is because I want more than a router but I want an all in one solution that I can plug in and go.

Estimated Completion: As soon as the rest of the parts have arrived. I really need to get this done as this rig has sat on my desk far too long. I would hope within the next month or so it should be up and running and functional provided all things go well. Being my first work log please bear with me as I work on it and get it every step closer to done.

As for how much of it can be done, most of the internals can be mounted up and configured, os installed and configured etc soon. But I really need the switch and wireless router before I can call it done. Now, I can possibly use the wireless AP/router I have at the moment but my biggest complaint is it drops the wireless side once every few days and I want a piece of hardware I can put in the closet and be done with it. Suggestions needed as for what Wireless AP to go with, I currently have a netgear and am very dissatisfied with it, so any suggestions and why you suggest it would be great. I would like for it to have G spec as well because my laptop currently does.

The case I have I scored two of them they came with some really slow 286's with minimal work I have been able to clean up and gut the one and have to finish removing the remainder of the backplane, drill out the mounting standoffs, and drill holes for the new ones to go in place. As for a new backplane I am not sure whether I will just go with a thin piece of aluminum for ease of dremeling or a piece of plexi for the same reason.

The end result is I want to create an all in one router/connectivity/server package all in one small footprint of a system using common parts such as M-ATX mobo's so that down the road the hardware can and is easy to upgrade.

Well let me know what you guys think, I will post up pictures this weekend for you and hopefully get some inspiration to finish! Thanks!

J :cool:

[SpeeDj]

Reserved for the money shots.
http://speedj.sytes.net/abyss/abyss_r1.jpg
The base format for installing Gentoo, sans HD atm. I have a KVM on the way to continue work on getting Gentoo up on it.

J :cool:

[Daewood]

sound cool and i would suggest using a couple of these:http://www.qualitycables.com/509961.html

that would be cool

[SpeeDj]

sound cool and i would suggest using a couple of these:http://www.qualitycables.com/509961.html

that would be cool
Unfortunately with the way the PCI card currently lays when I put up pictures you will see it doesn't have a whole lot of room to go the above route, not a bad idea for future server projects though. Thanks for the link *bookmarks*

J :cool:

[Daewood]

no problem

[`Infr@ReD~NT]

ya know you could get away with much lower end system, i use an old dell piece-o-crap it runs @ 350mhz has like 3 gigs of hd space and like 32 megs of ram i run ssh and webmin on it but no gui (but it runs smooth with the gui i just dont have the space for it on that system, and there is no point) its running redhat 7.3
it looks like this
http://www.geocities.com/bi_sui_casemods/DCP_0590.JPG its the one on the left ya cant see it but there is two network cards in it
this pic is pretty old but it still looks like that, except now i dont have a cdrom in it and the harddrives are in a rack type thing (in the pic one is under the static bag)

[SpeeDj]

ya know you could get away with much lower end system, i use an old dell piece-o-crap it runs @ 350mhz has like 3 gigs of hd space and like 32 megs of ram i run ssh and webmin on it but no gui (but it runs smooth with the gui i just dont have the space for it on that system, and there is no point) its running redhat 7.3 it looks like this its the one on the left ya cant see it but there is two network cards in it this pic is pretty old but it still looks like that, except now i dont have a cdrom in it and the harddrives are in a rack type thing (in the pic one is under the static bag)
Well several issues with that, running a webserver you need a bit of speed and a goodly amount of ram for speed. This box is going to be doing alot of things, and compiling and keeping gentoo up to speed is always a major processor chore due to how optimized the OS is. No this box will not be running a GUI as that's overhead that I don't want or need on it, strictly a server to run many different aspects but a server non the less :)

Currently it looks a bit how yours does to be honest, sitting all bare on the desk.

J :cool:

[Mark620]

This sounds good. Let us know how well it works :D

[`Infr@ReD~NT]

"* Apache - For web development"
sorry, i did not see that, my setup is strictly a router and network administration and thus does not need much of anything as far as hardware goes.

[Xenocide]

nice spee, i can't want to see this completed.

being the nix noob i am, i use smoothwall :D

[SpeeDj]

You know, when you read a project log and they post up how they would've posted some pic's but their camera died ? *sigh* That's the way I feel tonight, just got done taking a photo and *zzzzzzzzt* dead. Gotta get some new batteries tomorrow and then on to posting the very first shots of this log ^.^

Be patient with me!

J :cool:

[Viper2004]

I shall be patient! But if there aren't any pics tomorrow...I think I'm gonna have to whip up a big lazy sign in photoshop for you to use as your avatar :D

[9mmCensor]

You know, when you read a project log and they post up how they would've posted some pic's but their camera died ? *sigh* That's the way I feel tonight, just got done taking a photo and *zzzzzzzzt* dead. Gotta get some new batteries tomorrow and then on to posting the very first shots of this log ^.^

Be patient with me!

J :cool:
pfft stop playing UT, work will get done faster.

[SpeeDj]

Yeah teaser pic 1 added ;)

J :cool:

[Optimus Prime]

speedj i knew i liked u... gentoo is teh qwnage... seriously i love that os. portage is the coolest thing ever. and it is crazy fast and obviously by one most fun distros because it is total configured to your rig w/stage 2 or 1... even stage 3 is fast as all heck.

You obviously already knew all this but every time i see gentoo i try to get others fired up about it. www.gentoo.org

as for your mod it is going to be great. nice parts for the rig... looks like it should do everything that you want it to and be super small which is cool. i have always contemplated a linux box on the go.

[SpeeDj]

HARDWARE PICTURES!

On to some real updates, man does this camera ever suck battery, especially on a 256MB Card :|

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r2.jpg
Better shot showing the PCI Riser I have in use on the 3Com NIC.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r3.jpg
The Original realtek NIC I was going to use since it was compact, but led to no real way to secure it.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r4.jpg
Hence this solution to the securing it problem, I lose a mobo standoff, but since this board won't go through multiple teardowns like a normal rig I was willing to sacrifice.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r5.jpg
Mmmmmmm Kingmax PC150 Tiny BGA Ram, 512 MB of goodness, and look how tall it isn't. ^.^

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r6.jpg
Cheap 1U all copper heatsink, found at Compgeeks.com for maybe 20$ tops. Plenty for the processor in this setup.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r7.jpg
My Optical drive of choice for this adventure, a Pioneer slotload DVD Rom ^.^

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r8.jpg
An EMACS 230Watt 1U PSU, perfect for this job.

Well that's it for pictures for now, I've got some work done on the case to show off. That will have to wait until I show you the untouched case though, (good part about having two of them is for this purpose). Well what do you guys think so far ? Comments suggestions ? Idea's for improving this log ? Let me know :)

J :cool:

[Daewood]

if you were going for thin why not put in a lappy cdrom that would work good...?

[SpeeDj]

if you were going for thin why not put in a lappy cdrom that would work good...?
Because as mentioned above, this router won't have an optical drive, the DVD is simply to get the OS installed enough that I can finish emerging and updating it without it. Simply temporary only, the final product will be very slim indeed, including switch :)

J :cool:

[SpeeDj]

CASE PICTURES!

Now for some pictures of the bare unmodded base of this project, as I mentioned above I do have in my posession two of these cases so the one you are about to see is the non gutted non touched one. A roaring 386/16Mhz :) *snickers*

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r9.jpg
The bare case, here you can see the slimness of it, that is a 3.5" bay that is open in this case to give you a height comparison.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r10.jpg
386/16 Baby, the POWER! ^.^

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r11.jpg
A shot of the vents that abound on this case making it ideal for what it's going to be used for, possible upgrades would be some small 1U Case fans to improve airflow, may or may not happen by project end.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r12.jpg
Here you can see what the unmodded backplane looks like unfortunately not going to work for this project so it's all slowly going look for some pic's this weekend of an update on that.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r13.jpg
A ISA 10Base-T BNC style NIC god do I get nostalgic thinking about token ring LAN parties!

Well those are the majority of the base shots for the project, hope you guys enjoy and can see a little better just what direction I am taking with this project. The 10/100 switch is going to mount up with the ports facing out where the 3.5" drive bay is currently and will be powered by a re-wired jack to accept a molex. That's going to be fun, haven't quite decided how I am going to tackle getting the LAN uplink to the switch I may hardwire it from the 3Com NIC to the Switch. We will see how that breaks out in the wash though. Well let me know what you think, comments and suggestions are welcome.

J :cool:

[Daewood]

nice but i dont get why you are gutting one of those awesome machines i mean come on it is so fast that it would only take like 4 or 5 weeks for one seti WU... :drool:

jk looks good i am sure glad that you are going to paint it :D

[9mmCensor]

Once you get it painted it will look pretty sweet dude. Definately gonna be a slick box.

[Alice]

Nice. Makes me want a rackmount case... Weirdstuff Warehouse, here I come.

[SpeeDj]

IT LIVES!

Well I took some time out of my busy life to snap a few shots, here she is, first boot, ready for gentoo, and etc.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r14.jpg
I want to take a moment to thank Ploaf, who is by far one of the most kind hearted people you will ever meet on the forums, work on this project continues thanks to his help in supplying this KVM.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r15.jpg
Some 30GB Love, originally Abyss was slated for a 60GB HD, but unfortunately when my 40 took a dive I didn't have a choice but to swap places for hard drives. 30GB Shouldn't be bad, and by the time I am ready to replace it it should be a nice size drive anyway.

http://speedj.sytes.net/~speedj/abyss/abyss_r16.jpg
IT LIVES! Excuse my poor quality monitor photo I'll try better next time.

Just a tidbit, I worked a total of 90 hours this past week including almost 50+ over the weekend getting a grand total of, well let's just say not alot of sleep. Today was a 12 and a half day of support for four offices and honestly, I am burnt out. Don't expect another update this week unless I catch up on sleep and get the ambition to either start OS installing, or case modifications. Thank you all for your patience thus far. Well let me know what you think, comments and suggestions are welcome.

J :cool:

[DerekDRP]

its a pizza box LOL LOL. keep on modding and may the force be with you.

[SpeeDj]

its a pizza box LOL LOL. keep on modding and may the force be with you.
I have to agree, it does have the pizza box'ish feel and look to it... hummm... ahh just stay tuned, more to come hopefully in the next week or so.

J :cool:

[9mmCensor]

Looking good dude. Only 90hours of work. Thats nothing. Your slacking off again SpeeDj.

Great work btw.

[SpeeDj]

Looking good dude. Only 90hours of work. Thats nothing. Your slacking off again SpeeDj.

Great work btw.
whoops Seems that I am, thanks for the reminder. Look for some updates soon!

J :cool:

[Zulu-1]

whaaa
were are the updates.. this was lookin cool :p

[Caeberos]

you can set compile priority in gentoo to something low so it won't affect your other more important background services :cool:

[MameXP]

So this project is died or what?

[SpeeDj]

..I can assure it's far from dead :p

Just on hold..

Sucks having to work a ton.

J :cool:

[9mmCensor]

..I can assure it's far from dead :p

Just on hold..

Sucks having to work a ton.

J :cool:
Quit work.

Then you have more time with project and UT.