custom box: minimal power consumption, small form factor, ...

[Albretch Mueller]

I need to dedicate a box as a log aggregator. This is the type of
hardware I have in mind:

._ most minimal power consumption
._ (possibly ) fanless
._ small(est possible) form factor
._ 4 internal (or pluggable) 10/100/1000 NICs
._ 2+ USB2 ports (firewire and/or eSATA?)
._ keyboard, mouse and VGA interfaces
._ it could run Linux + a full blown DBMS such as PostgreSQL

no hard disk necessary. Data would be saved to external USB drives

Any ideas?

Thanks
lbrtchx

[Thad Floryan]

If you can live with only two GigE NICs:

<http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-openrdcdetails.aspx>

A much smaller version of same and using only 5 Watts is the SheevaPlug;
I have several of these in service as servers (DHCP, tftp, DNS, etc.):

<http://thadlabs.com/PIX/SheevaPlug_first.jpg>
<http://thadlabs.com/PIX/SheevaPlug_labelled.jpg>
<http://thadlabs.com/PIX/SheevaPlug_underside.jpg>
<http://thadlabs.com/PIX/SheevaPlug_ext_HD.jpg>

These are full-featured fanless systems running 1.2GHz ARM CPUs. To wit:

root@debian:~# date
Sun Dec 6 00:19:17 UTC 2009
root@debian:~# uptime
00:19:19 up 45 days, 10:24, 1 user, load average: 0.15, 0.14, 0.09
root@debian:~# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 519168 194000 325168 38% /
tmpfs 257816 0 257816 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 257816 268 257548 1% /var/run
varlock 257816 0 257816 0% /var/lock
udev 257816 4 257812 1% /dev
tmpfs 257816 0 257816 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 257816 0 257816 0% /var/cache/apt
root@debian:~# uname -a
Linux debian 2.6.22.18 #1 Thu Mar 19 14:46:22 IST 2009 armv5tejl GNU/Linux
root@debian:~# cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 9.04 \n \l

root@debian:~# cat foo.c
#include <stdio.h>
main(){printf("test\n");}
root@debian:~# make foo
cc foo.c -o foo
root@debian:~# ./foo
test
root@debian:~# file foo
foo: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses
shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.16, not stripped
root@debian:~# gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) 4.3.3
Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

root@debian:~# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.22.18 (dhaval@devbox) (gcc version 4.2.1) #1 Thu Mar 19
14:46:22 IST 2009

[ray]

I'd look to some of the VIA mini or nano itx platforms.

[Albretch Mueller]

~
I think I will have to go for a SFF box with 2 free PCI slots for the
extra nics
~
lbrtchx