October 2012 – Page 2

In my previous blog I started the process of swapping out the Dell network switches in order to replace an aging Netgear GS716T at one of my DC Racks. This time I need to reconfigure the swapped out Dell PowerConnect 5224 switch so that when I rack it up at the data center, only minimal configuration will be required.

This switch is massive compared to the Dell PowerConnect 5324. In my experience it is just as good as the 53 series switches. The feature set is about the same even though the Web UI is slightly different.

To factory reset the PowerConnect 5224 all that’s required is to repeatedly hit Ctrl-F as the switch boots up. It’ll go into a recovery menu. Then all that’s required is to delete the startup-config and set the Factory Default file as the start file

Once the switch is reloaded. Standard config commands will configure the switch for ethernet

Console#configure
Console(config)#interface vlan 1
Console(config-if)#ip address 192.168.77.192 255.255.255.0
Console(config-if)#end
Console#copy running-config startup-config
Console#reload

The switch is now ready to be configured via the Web UI.

Few weeks ago I picked up this old Intel SR1530AH server. This server was picked up specifically to act as a firewall for one of my racks at a data center. This is a very basic, almost desktop level hardware. Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz CPU and 4GB of RAM. The only thing that is non-desktop is the fact that it is ECC ram.

This is actually a very nice machine for the purpose. Based on previous experience with 2.0Ghz it should be able to sustain approx 300MBit/s unencrypted traffic across interfaces. Which is quite plenty since the uplink to the internet is only a 100Mbit connection. Now, because this server only comes with two onboard network interfaces, I needed to add an additional network card. I had an extra low profile riser in my junk drawer so couple of minutes later I added a dual port Intel Pro nic. This gives me the minimum 3 interfaces I require (WAN, LAN and DMZ). I could potentially use the third interface as a bridged DMZ for some of the VMs.

In order to install pfSense on the server, I needed persistent storage. I chose to go with the OCZ Agility 3 60GB SSD drive. Seems like overkill since the installation of the firewall is only about 6GB including swap space. But SSD’s are pretty cheap nowadays and since pfSense hardly ever writes to the local storage and the lack of moving parts should equate long drive life.

Ran into a small issue installing the 2.5″ SSD into the server as the adapter that comes with the drive is insufficient to mount it. Thankfully, I’ve had several of these “Ice Packs”. These came off of several Western Digital Velociraptors. While it looks like a heavy duty heatsink, it’s main purpose is to simply adapt the 2.5″ Velociraptor size to a 3.5″ hot-swap size.

Couple of screws and the Agility nicely sits in the Ice Pack, ready to be installed into the server.

The disk drive now installed into the server. Hopefully it won’t have to leave it’s home for a very long time.

Time to install pfSense. This simply involves downloading the ISO image from the pfSense web site. Uncompressing it and burning to the CD. The uncompressed image is only 115MB so the burn process is very quick.