linux box or appliance

Depending on your electric rates, an old desktop PC could cost you (or somebody) $10US/mo to operate. Your server sounds like it's much more than that.

An old laptop is much better from this POV and it has a compact kbd and screen that fold up and hide when not needed.

Hi Flamer,

I suggest switching to UTM ( Unified Threat Management) appliance instead of using legacy firewalls like PIX-501 or PIX-506.

They have greater value with almost the same cost, but you will get extra : Anti-Virus, IPS, Content filtering, Anti-Spam...... all in one box!

Panda,

Greater flexibility. You can easily add/remove interfaces (for changes in network topology, e.g. adding DMZs), run services on the box (which is usually a not-so-good idea, but may be okay depending on the actual network setup you have), add/remove filters for network or application layer, etc.

The downsides are that it usually doesn't run out-of-the-box and will probably be more power-consuming than firewall appliances.

AFAICS any of the solutions you mentioned above will meet these requirements.

cu

Thanks for the replies, I guess I want to try and avoid using the rack server if possible without losing any functionality, also the server has only one pci slot and one onboard 10/100 so a dual port ethernet would be required which are generally pretty pricey.. where I live a

Flamer.

Pix 501 and 506 models have only two physical network interfaces.

Wolfgang

yeah good point, they only have inside and outside interface with an integrated 4 port switch.

Flamer.