I finally read Manuel's paper on the new architecture, and I wrote up a bunch of disorganized notes if anyone wants to sift through them:
http://www.docunext.com/2007/09/01/m0n0wall-architecture-thoughts/I ended up rambling on there for awhile, but the gist of it is that I've done some experiments using phing as a modular build system for m0n0wall (inspired by m0n0dev.php) and the results are very encouraging. What I wasn't expecting was the ability to hook into the ports collection, and utilize the existing information there, like md5sums and resource locators.
Besides that pleasant surprise, I've been working on using phing to make the configuration file, the configuration process, and the webgui as modular as possible. Currently I'm still doing a lot by hand, but the plan is to use more sophisticated data storage mechanisms, a script building process, and XSL templates to make it all happen.
This is just a heads up for anyone who's interested, I'd be glad if what I've been working on could help the new unborn project. I'm aiming to release what I've got as soon as I have two build files working, one for m0n0wall and one for a jabber appliance. I was making great progress but got sidetracked into learning some perl for djabberd and encountered a few issues with perl, but should be back at it soon.
I'm tinkering with making this concept into a full fledged "parasitical" distribution, in that it leeches off of the work of others to build itself. At this point I think the build files could even be flexible to work with different packages collections (ports, debian, rpms, and / or portage) but I'll have to do more research to find out whether that is a possibility.
The name I'm using for now is "nodows", meaning no windows, because the resulting images will not include X or any windowing system, and beyond that there is the possibility of not having any user interface at all. You could potentially build a pre-configured image, install it on some media, boot up, and start using its services, be it smtp, xmmp, or whatever. That's obviously a ways away, and may not end up being worth it.
Topic: phing as a m0n0wall builder