ipcop support

Greetings and thank you for reading this post...

I am trying to figure out a few things about IPCop and this post is about the hardware use.

I was thinking of purchasing a netbook with a static drive to use as a computer for using IPCop. This would be low cost, low power and plenty fast enough

BUT...

Netbooks only have 1 NIC (excluding wireless) port.

My Questions:
1- Would a Netbook computer work well enough for IPCop?
2- Would IPCop installation most likely recognize a USB to 10/100 NIC adapter? This could be perfect for solving the Netbook only having 1 NIC port.

Thank you so much for your time in helping me with this issue.

Un-Suitable for Broadband

(to use Blue's favorite saying)

Besides, there's not a laptop/netbook in the world that was designed to run 24/7/365.

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For the 2.5^15th time :: Better Details = Better Answers

You might be absolutely correct about the NetBoot. I had hoped it would be. Here is my thinking...

1- NetBoot with a static dive has no moving parts and low power consumption.
2- some NetBoots don't have fans. Again no mechanical issues there.
3- a NetBoot would have a nice size.
4- low starting price.

I should just go eBay and look for some older used hardware.

As for the USB to 10/100 adapter, why would USB be bad? It seems the USB large bandwidth could be fine for this kind of job. Not so?

Going thru 2 different protocols (USB/TCP) for data transport seem problematic.

As the saying goes YMMV (your mileage may vary).

USB-Ethernet adapters are cheap, so give them a try.

Netbooks with a SSD might work, assuming the USB/Ethernet thingy works. And of course v2.x is now out so it might be better supported.

Give it a try and see what happens.

My "guess" would be, even if you can get all the hardware to work as needed, you'll burn thru the setup in a relatively short time.

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For the 2.5^15th time :: Better Details = Better Answers

Thank you very much for the input.

You might have a look on ebay, dell has been selling 755 optiplex desktops for less then 100 bucks.
Not sure how many PCI/PCIE slots they have in them though.. probably at least 2, plus onboard.

they run core2 775 socket cpu's which would likely be plenty of power.

The optiplex systems come in a number of sizes, the small form factor ones are very small.

otherwise you may look into a Atom ITX motherboard, they usually have at least 1 Ethernet, sometimes dual, and usually have 1 pci/e.

either option would be cheaper then trying to adapt a netbook.

If you need a SSD you could always get one of those or run IPCop from USB flash drive, or get a compact flash -> ide/sata adapter.

CPU power wise any new system would probably fit your needs, My IPcop runs on a 14 year old 400mhz celeron with 128mb ram and it runs like a champ.


Once seen a stack of 4 panasonic tough books in a cluster.

Seemed like a terrible waste of money to me but on the other hand it took up very little room.

Iv'e got an SMC USB Ethernet adapter connected to my ipcop and its absolutely fine.. It's never been an issue in the years its been in use (in which time i've replaced 2 PCI cards due to them dying - they were cheapo realtek ones.. but even so the usb is holding up well against them)

Yeah, should work fine IF YOU CAN FIND A SUITABLE USB adapter.

The Linux kernel version in IPCop just slightly pre-dates the more general adoption of USB NIC and the implementation has some issues. Then, even if you can identify a USB adapter that is SUPPOSED to work, good luck on buying one that STILL works. That means that manufactures make 'silent rolls' on the hardware: the same model number and UPC will be used when they change the hardware version with a new (hah, unsupported!) chipset. And sometimes they update the firmware and break it because they either did it wrong or got the wrong vendor/chip ID, or changed to one that is not supported. You might find some older models on ebay, but I find it difficult to get reliable information on the specific HW version. It also depends on what you are willing to pay.

I am currently using a Belkin F5D5050 behind a FitPC 2 (ultra-tiny, 5 watt, fanless, CF/SSD hard drive) computer. These run 24/7/365. The combination does throttle my effective throughput: I have 7Mbps DSL connection, but I can't get much more than 5Mbps through IPCop. I can get the full 7Mbps without IPCop.

It is NOT truly reliable or suitable as suggested, but this has been running for over a year without issue. My family would let me know instantly if it went down! I do have a backup desktop with dual NIC standing by just in case.

I don't have ready access to my notes, but I can post or send you a list of the USB adapters that are supposed to work with my discoveries about actual status, availability, etc. (PM me?)

I was really hoping that IPCop2 would solve all my problems by opening up the USB support in the newer kernel, but they have changed IPCop2 and it does not have both the Advanced Proxy and URL Filter functionality available that I need.

Jimboha