On Dec 27, 2007 10:41 PM, Douglas A. Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:

quoted text
> I'd wire in a hardware-type heartbeat detector that will power-cycle the
> computer if it stops working.  I'd have a door over the money slot
> powered by the computer so that it only accepts money when its working.
> You could have a "Please wait" light to be lit during the reboot.
>
> Or, you could just rewire an MP3 player to play a tune when it is
> powered on, then just hook the money-detector to the power switch.
> Money turns it on, a timer just longer than the tune turns it off.  No
> computer needed (just a 556-dual-555 timer IC and some spare parts).
>

I second the idea of something as simple as an MP3 player connected to a
money detector, if that's all it will be doing.  Seems a little over-kill to
get a whole computer, even if it is something as simple as a Soekris (
http://www.soekris.com/, which by the way, is a very nice device).

However, if you do decide you still want an embedded OBSD device, it
certainly is doable.  I have a Soekris net4801 that I am using as my
firewall/router, and it is working like an appliance.  I'm using a 1GB CF
card; it's mounted RW, but for the most part it is really only writing data
to an mfs mount point.  In this case, it's obviously connected to a network,
and I have a monitoring tool running to report back on disk space usage, but
it could easily do without this.

I have a cron job that periodically checks to make sure the mfs mount points
don't fill up, and cleans them out as appropriately.  I have also highly
tuned the log rotation to further ensure mount points don't get filled out.

Should a problem arise, since the CF card is effectively read-only, a reboot
is as simple and unplugging the device and then plugging it back in.  Unless
there is a hardware fault, it will come back up on its own.  For further
protection, you should mount the CF read-only so no mount points there can
accidentally fill up.