Cisco ASA-5505 worth anything?

dave343

dave343

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Long story short, I was at a company that a family member works at, noticed this Cisco ASA-5505 kicking around and when asked was told I could have it since they upgraded. Only reason I took it was I've never had Cisco stuff and thought I'd mess around with it. But now I'm thinking I already have my DD-WRT so I might just dump it. Is it worth its weight? And if so what could I expect to get for it? Thx.
 
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dave343 said:
Long story short, I was at a company that a family member works at, noticed this Cisco ASA-5505 kicking around and when asked was told I could have it since they upgraded. Only reason I took it was I've never had Cisco stuff and thought I'd mess around with it. But now I'm thinking I already have my DD-WRT so I might just dump it. Is it worth its weight? And if so what could I expect to get for it? Thx.
Click to expand...

Those are awesome little boxes. I use one at home and I have them deployed in remote sites. Extremely stable. Remember that those are licensed per user (at least they used to be) so you'll need to find out if it is the 10, 50 or unlimited license. They also come in 2 memory sizes - 256MB and 512MB. You'll need 512MB to run the latest software. The memory is semi-proprietary, but if you google carefully you should be able to find something compatible on the cheap.

If you're a novice and have nobody to guide you or are not any kind of Cisco savvy, then look elsewhere as the learning curve can be steep for a noob. However, if you master it - the knowledge will be very valuable professionally.
 
Thats one of the reasons I grabbed it initially was to dabble with the Cisco command line. I had no idea what it was, but i did some more research
last night and it does seem like a cool box to play around with. Being a Cisco firewall, like you mentioned I think I could learn from it. I've been a
PC tech for 20 years but have had the ambition to get more into the networking side of things. And playing around with Cisco stuff has been a goal,
but most of their equipment is too pricey and nobody usually give's it away.
I wasnt' even sure how old this was, so it was good to know this is still a current product with Cisco as I thought maybe I had grabbed a box that was 15
years old.

The one I have it Version 5... and since I don't yet have a Console cable I can't yet log into the box to see what it has. I know the company it came
from, so I'm assuming at the very least they purchased the 50 user license. I'm not sure if that license refers to general usage or VPN access but even still,
they would have needed more then 10 licenses for VPN.
As for the ram it'd be interesting to know how much it has right now, I read it takes DDR but can be picky. I have 512mb sticks and 1gb sticks of DDR
333 and 400, all Kingston so maybe I'll play around with that.
 
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I'm planning on taking CCNA Security this year, and I've been wanting to come across one of these cheap. Let me know if you end up not using it.
 
500mhz AMD Geode processor, 100mbit ports. One I got off ebay isn't 100% stable (crashed once on a 'wr mem' all lights flashing) but prob worth $70 online.

I'm waiting for my work to give me a 5510 now that they are EOL
*They have an upgradable processor and gigabit ports. :D:p
 
vxspiritxv said:
500mhz AMD Geode processor, 100mbit ports. One I got off ebay isn't 100% stable (crashed once on a 'wr mem' all lights flashing) but prob worth $70 online.

I'm waiting for my work to give me a 5510 now that they are EOL
*They have an upgradable processor and gigabit ports. :D:p
Click to expand...

Chances are it was bad memory and might be replaceable.
 
To OP,

Keep in mind, when working with ASA, you are not working with IOS. It is a different operating system. Some of the fundamentals still apply when you move to IOS from ASA, but they are very different in their own regards. If you are looking to learn Cisco, be sure to also get an appliance that runs IOS.
 
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