Inertia Posted November 22, 2002 Share Posted November 22, 2002 hi, this is a big move for me , ile start by telling you my current setup ..... i have a server and 3 pcs , the 3pcs all access the internat via the server which is running wingate 4.5 on windows 98, wingate 4.5 manages the modem, dialing on demand and disconnecting when idle for 10 minutes, heres the spec of the server : compaq deskpro : cyrix m-2 300mhz 80mb edo simms 3gb fujitsu hdd 40x cd-rom MDP3858-E internal pci modem 3com etherlink 2tp (16-bit) (3c503) NIC onboard sis 4mb graphics windows 98 second edition with all windows updates ive been having a few problems with running 98 with worm viruses , every now and then NAV will pick up an infected file and hault the system , so i have to go to the server , react to the prompt , disconnect it from the internet and network , do a full system scan , reboot , delete the startup items etc etc, its getting all to often that i have to do this. so ive decided i would like to run a linux system off it as a router as it would be a good project, the only problem is that i have to know what i will be doing because once i start i will have no internet access until its done (the modem isnt compatable with xp, all the other systems run xp). the 2 copys of linux i have are mandrake 7.0 and redhat 5.2 , though i could spend a few days downloading a more up to date / apropriate copy. I am a complete unix/linux n00b and although i could probably install the os i would struggle to get all the hardware working and the router software working , also i need to know what i need to d/l before i start so that i can do this with no net access. hope you guys can help , hope i dont get p**sed off and put win98 back after a struggle :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted November 22, 2002 Share Posted November 22, 2002 I would recommend anyone to use BSD for firewall, gateway, nat, router and etc. Because, BSD's tools have the better control for the real packets, nat, gateway and others. Also, it's more secure, better faster, use lesser resource and etc. But, it's up to you. There have awful plenty of HOW-TOs and DOCs in the google.com .. You will need to start and learn the basic first, which meaning you will have to take the steps. >> MDP3858-E internal pci modem This one might be one of bigger problem. It's winmodem. Search in google for MDP3858-E linux and from what I see are a lot of them are telling that this card sucks. Get a good external modem, I like Robotics modem a lot better. >> the 2 copys of linux i have are mandrake 7.0 and redhat 5.2 They are very out-of-date big time. RedHat 5.2 has a lot of security holes, I think it's one of worst version that RedHat ever had. Get a good small secure Linux distro like Slackware, Trustix, Openwall, Debian and etc. EnGarde Linux has very nice web interface to configure the firewall, but I am not sure if it's good on nat, gateway and etc. Or, even better, get BSD.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inertia Posted November 23, 2002 Author Share Posted November 23, 2002 how about freebsd 4.7 ? and will that support my modem ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted November 23, 2002 Share Posted November 23, 2002 winmodem, so what do you expect from it? No, it won't work very well in *nix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zivan56 Posted November 23, 2002 Share Posted November 23, 2002 Try FreeSCO, it's only one floppy and it auto detects modems. It also has a web interface. If you like it, you can run mov2hd and install packages from the internet using the pkg tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krome Posted November 23, 2002 Share Posted November 23, 2002 I have a question pertaining to the same issue... I want to set up a server to share internet... If I set up the server using *nix, do you think I can allow it to give internet access to Windows OS client? I want to use the *nix as a firewall station and the Windows OS client running behind it... Is this possible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inertia Posted November 23, 2002 Author Share Posted November 23, 2002 it sure is , almost any operating system can access the internet via a NAT server , in windows you simply put the ip address of the server in the gateway box on tcp/ip of network properties and fil out the dns pannel too :) you can rn all versions of unix , macos , and im even told commodore amigas behind a NAT server. NAT is a kind of all in 1 proxy server that doesnt handle differnt protocols differently, but just routes there tcp and udp ports apropriatley so that the protocols can function :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrunkenMaster Posted November 23, 2002 Share Posted November 23, 2002 I would recommend anyone to use BSD for firewall Naturally, it probably has something to do with your Sig, no? :) There are quite a few floppy based linux router/firewalls. There are also CD based ones i.e. download the iso and install on the HD. Its good to have a lot of harddrive space. I'd easily assign 5GB to /var/log since log files will take up a lot of space. I'm trying a few of the Linux CD ones in the near future. They're quicker and easier to setup than a box from scratch (hey even I'm lazy and I don't have a lot of time). There's Clarkconnect, Madrake Firewall, Ipcop and securepoint all of which are free. The thing I like about some of them is they track bandwidth usage and traffic in addition to doing firewall and routing. BTW: If you're building the box from scratch and you want the traffic graphs and bandwidth tracking you have to use MRTG and SNMP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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