[plug] Don't do that!

[Bernd Felsche]

On Thursday 16 September 2004 12:30, Matt Kemner wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Sep 2004, quoth James Devenish:
> > I then asked about whether you were comfortable hosting another
> > machine. Given these outcomes, I assume there must have been some
> > discussion within the committee, but nothing has been officially
> > announced.

> It's the first I'd heard of it.

> Although I'm happy to be hosting the sparc and xbox, I've been
> doing some consolidation of PCs at home (I've gone from 6 machines
> constantly running down to 3, and I'm about to reduce that by
> another one) to try and reduce my skyrocketing power bill, so
> after that I'm really not too keen on adding yet another machine
> to the house, especially if it only provides a single service.

I have great sympathy for your plight so the following two measures
have been taken:

1. It's an EPIA-based system that doesn't use a lot of juice when
   idle (or even a lot when busy). The hard drives at idle are also
   quiet and draw little current. [I've already mentioned the fan
   problem which is to be remedied before it's deployed.] I've not
   measured the actual power consumption as I don't have an accurate
   meter but it should be using less than 80W peak and 25W when
   idle, even with a low-efficiency PSU.

2. It's a small box "Simple 101" 14 cm wide and 36 cm tall. I
   couldn't find a smaller one that'd easily house two hard drives
   and have an internal PSU.

The machine has enough grunt (1GHz and 512MB RAM) to take on other
duties. Initial deployment as NNTP server is to provide confidence
that the closed-access NNTP works.

The lone PCI slot is occupied by a second NIC, which I thought might
be useful for providing secure access through a LAN, while the other
NIC is connected to a DMZ. But that doesn't stop you from using the
machine as a firewall/router... after reducing the loaded software
down to a minimum.

-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
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