On Sat, 2004-11-06 at 10:15, Paul M Foster wrote:
> No, I have plenty of old hardware. But I consider a read-only media for
> a firewall a good thing.
And I can appreciate that belief. And in such cases, you should send
your real-time logs to another system for storage and further analysis.
> Plus, constantly rotating hard drive spindles are an open invitation to
> hardware failure.
First off, optical WORM (CD-R, DVD-R) failure rates are _much_higher_.
MO (CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R/RW, even when mounted read-only) is even worse
(10,000x over).
Secondly, you _could_ use power savings so the hard drive isn't used
when logging is minimal, setting your buffers higher so more is cached.
Of course, that kinda hurts the whole "real-time" logging.
But in the end, with software RAID and low-cost 3Ware Escalade
ASIC-driven ATA RAID cards, I typically put (2) HDs in _any_ system I
build anymore -- even desktops and SOHO network appliances.
> A rarely rotating floppy works, but floppy media degrade,
Again, CD-R WORM media can degrade faster than a sealed, magnetic disc.
It all depends.
> and the floppy drive hole sucks in dust which you can see when you pop
> out the floppy.
CD drives fail far more than hard drives in my experience, do to the
same problem as floppies -- dust, airflow, etc...
> Thus, the idea of using a CD-ROM for the media instead.
To each his own. Just need to figure out something to address the
logging issue.
It's not a matter of preventing a hack, but knowing when you have been.
Especially with the overwhelming majority of system compromises being
outbound-based (LAN client-initiated).
Just my $0.02. Feel free to disagree and blow my views off.
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