I currently need to set up a firewall as an internet gateway. Since my main server has gone bang (not my fault honest ) I hit upon the idea of my old old old 486 running linux. It wont have to run anything apart from the linux kernal and a built in firewall. And allow pass through access for everybodys on my lan (i.e my 5 flat mates). Question is do you think it will be up to the job ? As im getting sick of peopel trying crapy attacks on my main machine with scripts theyve down loaded from the net. If this is a really bad idea (please tell me now) Could a router be user with some sort of hardware firewall ? (in a limited sense)
you could use a RT314 router, It has a built in firewall and is very good as both a router and DHCP server as Koolvin can attest. Or you could go down the Smoothwall route, just look at some of the posts in this forum. I do post quite a bit about it. Fly
I just use a standard linux system as my gateway/router I never really bothered with any firewalling rules, everything is just allowed through, I've never had any problems... I rarely get DDoS'ed on a modem, hardly ever in fact, and you can;t access from the internet machines on the private network anyway, only the main router, so if that's secure, you shouldn't have any hacking problems either...(That doesn't include protection against trojan horses, they would jsut get allowed thru....) You could run personal firewalls on each individual machine to stop stuff like that tho
Ok thank you for the surgestions im thinking of trying to use the 486 as the gateway but the thought of a DHCP server also sounds really good. There is only one problem with the router in that its a lot less flexable than a machine. But the main problem is you cant mod a router
YOU KIDDING ? Damn, there's an idea ! I want to be the first person to put a window and a blue cathode in some Netgear equipment /me looks at his EN516 sitting idle on a shelf......
To late our switch cabinate at works already been modded after the green leds burnt out they are now a nice shade of blue . i put up a pic if i get the chance.
Smoothwall Try out www.smoothwall.org - this would be perfect for a 486 and gove you a lot of extra options. I went down the "red hat" linux box (pc is now modded red with black buttons aka http://augier.planetdps.com/redhat1.jpg!) route, as I'm thinking about some Linux development... all I need now is a KVM switch!
Hmm so its a linux platform but doesnt give you all the config options. Anyone care to enlighten me also does any one use it ?
So whats your opinion of it any good very configerable. lso any problems with it. And how did it cope with the recent viruses
smoothwall is rock solid, I have been using it for about 8 weeks. Not affected by the viruses and is very configurable. It it perfect if run with zonealarm as it stops all dodgy incoming packets and attacks, and ZA stops any unathorised outgoing connections (trojans). I got myself DDoS attacked a few days ago and SW reacted very well...the connection dropped for no longer than 2 seconds and all users on the lan were unaffected. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Fly
Its brilliant, would reccomend it to you, easy to use when setup. Personnally I had a couple of problems installing, as the cdrom i was using was screwed.
