Today's real champion is this one. One of my PC Engines APU devices - I don’t remember the exact year I bought it, probably 2017.

It worked at my home as a router/firewall with OPNsense for several months, then in 2018 I installed it at a client’s site, "as a temporary emergency solution". Still running OPNsense, always kept updated, and it hasn’t missed a bit since then.

During a severe thunderstorm, the access point and switch connected to it were fried, but it kept going - silently and reliably. Zerotier, Wireguard, port forwarding, bandwidth graphs - all handled in a hot office, often with the air conditioning turned off during holidays.

It did everything, and it still works.

The client moved to a new location this morning, and the APU was replaced with a more powerful device (in anticipation of a future Internet upgrade). I decided to take it back with me (technically, it’s still mine) - they couldn’t find the power adapter, probably still packed in boxes, but up until 07:30 this morning (the last time I connected to the server behind it via VPN), it was perfectly reliable.

I’ll probably keep using it - I have others - maybe in the office as a file server with two attached drives.

Honor to the device, honor to OPNsense, honor to FreeBSD.

#OPNSense #FreeBSD #RunBSD #APU #APU2 #PCEngines

3, 2, 1, ...

#coreboot #dasharo #apu2 #netboot

Das Land braucht neue #Firewalls.

Die #OPNsense Community Edition kann bereits auf eigener Hardware kostengünstig installiert werden, z.B. auf unserer Lieblingsplattform #APU2 die wir dutzendfach im Einsatz haben.

Sollten die Anforderungen noch höher sein, dann hilft die #OPNSense zertifizierte Hardware von #deciso die zusammen mit der Business Edition in geschäftskritischen Bereichen bedenkenlos eingesetzt werden kann.

#FreeBSD #UNIX

Having the bios/boot-menu rendering natively over #serial is something standard x86-boxes should be able to do. No need to change input on the monitor/kvm etc. between computers.

Makes it much more pleasant booting an USB installer on this #APU2 than for example on a NUC.

#Debian #Linux #PCEngines #Computing #RS232

Bought two #PCEngines #APU2 boxes to replace my home servers. 6w passive 4 core AMD-cpu instead of a way too hot NUC with a noisy fan.

https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm

20 years ago I used a similar hardware from PC Engines as an #openbsd firewall.

This time it's #BSD and #Debian for different purposes. Just going to install them before stacking them together. I do wonder how much of an air gap I will need to have between them to avoid them heating up each other.

#Computing #Linux #Unix #RS232

In my journey to replace my old #APU2 #openbsd #router #TIL about #KARL

https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20170613041706

So apparently if an openbsd #kernel changes for some reason, like a patching, at next boot it will be re-linked in order to randomize addresses. Yet another thing they do to maintain #security. I love it.👍