want to build a cheap, small, low-power linux router

[ZippyDan]

what are my best options?

I want:

1. Something that can run a full distro of linux. I might run something like ClearOS community edition, but it doesn't have to be that
2. Something small like an appliance computer/shuttle-pc/HTPC or smaller
3. Very low power as I want to have it running 24/7
4. As a router it would need to support to LAN interfaces
5. Video, Keyboard out for any troubleshooting
6. Cheapish

My idea is to have something that I can VPN into at any time and Wake-On-LAN my much bigger power-hungry desktop. I want to do other router shenanigans as well.

I have a spare 128GB mSATA card that seems like it would be perfect for this kind of application. I wish they sold little boards where I could make use of all these old 1 and 2GB DDR2 DIMMs and SODIMMs that I have, but I guess they might not be super low-power.

Could a Rasberry Pi or like do something like this?

 

[master_shake_]

my pfsense box is a vm with 2 physical nics

thats cheap

 

[ZippyDan]

my pfsense box is a vm with 2 physical nics

thats cheap

ok... I'm more interested in the hardware side? a lot of advancements have been made in low-power computing in the past 5 years

 

[Cerb]

If you want something built/configured:
http://www.mini-box.com/MiniPC-Value-Systems

You'd still need an mSATA to SATA adapter.

A Pi would not be up for the job.

You could also check out these:
http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Kits-C82.aspx

The sell them built, with pfSense already loaded, for much more, but of course there's nothing but LAN and serial. The boards are based on Brazos (Bobcat) processors (they used to be Geode, AKA Cyrix 6x86!). You get a lot less for your money, but they are lower power and smaller than a fully-featured system.

A Pi would not be suitable. There may be similar SBCs that could be made to work, but I don't know of any, short of maybe an ODroid with USB NICs.

 

[ZippyDan]

If you want something built/configured:
http://www.mini-box.com/MiniPC-Value-Systems

You'd still need an mSATA to SATA adapter.

A Pi would not be up for the job.

You could also check out these:
http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Kits-C82.aspx

The sell them built, with pfSense already loaded, for much more, but of course there's nothing but LAN and serial. The boards are based on Brazos (Bobcat) processors (they used to be Geode, AKA Cyrix 6x86!). You get a lot less for your money, but they are lower power and smaller than a fully-featured system.

A Pi would not be suitable. There may be similar SBCs that could be made to work, but I don't know of any, short of maybe an ODroid with USB NICs.

Wow, the prices on all those mini boxes are pretty reasonable. I wonder how much it would cost to build something similar myself with parts from newegg or Amazon

 

[mfenn]

Wow, the prices on all those mini boxes are pretty reasonable. I wonder how much it would cost to build something similar myself with parts from newegg or Amazon

Here's what I came up with:

Gigabyte GA-J1900N-D3V $85
InWin BP655 w/200W PSU $50

So that's $135, whereas the MiniBox system will cost you $169. Pros and cons for the InWin versus the MiniBox

+ Less Expensive
+ No External Brick
- Bigger
- Lower Quality PSU
- Louder

 

[easp]

I'd look more closely at the PCEngines-based boxes from Netgate. They have three gigE and two mini-PCIe slots, plus, I'm pretty sure that the CoreBoot bios lets you do everything you need to debug boot issues over a serial console. Also, RAM is included in the price.

If I were going to DIY, I'd look at motherboards that have DC-in and allow you to get power from a laptop power brick.

 

[Fox5]

Heh, the ClearOS web base is spewing some error about SQL tables right now. Always funny to see when security minded products get hacked.