Question about PIX 515

elegua

Hi Guys,

I have a question, a friend of mine is selling me his pix 515 very cheap ($100), really, i don't need it but why not ?, the problem is i don't know anything about PIX's so i'm looking for answers with you guys:

Cisco PIX Firewall Version 6.3(5)                                 

Flash i28F640J5 @ 0x300, 16MB
BIOS Flash AT29C257 @ 0xfffd8000, 32KB

0: ethernet0: address is 0001.64ff.d518, irq 11
1: ethernet1: address is 0001.64ff.d519, irq 10
Licensed Features:
Failover:                    Disabled
VPN-DES:                     Enabled
VPN-3DES-AES:                Enabled
Maximum Physical Interfaces: 3
Maximum Interfaces:          5
Cut-through Proxy:           Enabled
Guards:                      Enabled
URL-filtering:               Enabled
Inside Hosts:                Unlimited
Throughput:                  Unlimited
IKE peers:                   Unlimited

This PIX has a Restricted (R) license.

I was doing some reading and this pix is way to much for me, also these are the questions i have:

1- Can i use it in my home network? (running 3 servers, around 10 hosts and few routers/switches)

2- Can i add more ethernet ports to it?, if yes how?.

3- Can i add more memory to it?, my friend told me if i add more Flash/DRAM he can upgrade it to 7.0 or 8.0 IOS.

Thank you guys in advance.

astorrs

Yes the license is for an unlimited number of internal hosts so you can have as many systems behind it as you want.

Yes you can buy either a 1 port (PIX-1FE) or 4 port (PIX-4FE) 10/100 expansion NIC. You can buy the PIX specific cards off eBay or something or you might get lucky and still be able to use a 3Com 3C590 or 3C595 NIC (if you can find them).

You can load PIX O/S 8.x on it as it is you don't need to up the FlashROM (16MB is enough). Assuming its a default (no memory upgrade) it has 32MB RAM which should be fine given the small workload you are pushing through it.