Best Linux Distribution for ADSL routing/firewall

L

LethalChicken

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
1,340
Reaction score
3
Location
00-07-E9-13-97-54
Hi All,

I've given up and decided to put my PII to some use and install a linux system on it to handle my ADSL connection/accounts/routing and firewall ...

I'd like to know what you guys are using as your distribution (distribution/version please) also what would be the best distribution to use for the small home network .. 4 PCs .. which would be most stable and easiest to figure out ...

My biggest issues are
1) It has to be able to handle the connection from my ADSL router.
2) Be able to let multiple M$ users access the internet
3) Have a firewall which is solid yet easy to configure.

Txs


We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
 
I don't use linux but ur OS does not really handel ur router. It is ethernet and plugs into the switch, unless u are nunning ur linux box as the firewall/gateway in which case you are going to need a seperate NIC and then it runs thru ur pc. It does not have to do with supporting the router. This only comes into play when u have those sh1tty USB modems.

<opinion> If you are at home and this is a home pc, why you want to run linux (all linux fans don't jump at me). Windows OS's are so much more user friendly and for a home based pc on a 4 peer network i kinda don't see the point. You oviously not a die hard fan as you don't know what disto to use. </opinion>

There is no peace without war!!!
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by BlobNow</i>
<br />Hi All,

I've given up and decided to put my PII to some use and install a linux system on it to handle my ADSL connection/accounts/routing and firewall ...

I'd like to know what you guys are using as your distribution (distribution/version please) also what would be the best distribution to use for the small home network .. 4 PCs .. which would be most stable and easiest to figure out ...

My biggest issues are
1) It has to be able to handle the connection from my ADSL router.
2) Be able to let multiple M$ users access the internet
3) Have a firewall which is solid yet easy to configure.

Txs


We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Get smoothwall, its a linux based hardended mini distro.
Well meet all your requirements and then some.
Will run 100% of your P2.
Very easy and intuitive to use ... 1000000x more secure than windoze.



-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.telkom.fokkensuig.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
www.hellkom.co.za
Read about MaD of hellkom being sued for R5million by Telkom:
http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4316
 
I really dislike linux as it is highly user unfriendly but it seems to be better at routing handling multiple accounts and firewalling ... also as my "better pc's" are used for workstations and servers I only have a PII left for the firewall ..

I want to set up a DMZ for security purposes ...

router modem -&gt; linux box (eth0) then linux box (eth1) -&gt; Shwitch -&gt; all the M$ PCs




We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
 
Txs harth .. was busy replying to the 1st post while you posted your reply [:0] .. is there a local mirror for that dist .. and is there a site that has installation / setup / maintenance support ?

Txs

EDIT: Doh, I just saw it's a firewall not a linux dist .. I'll still nedd a linux dist to run the firewall

We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
 
Talk to LooseCannon about his Canonball distribution...

G

You Have The Obligation to Inform One Honestly of the risk, And As a Person
You Are Committed to Educate Yourself to the Total Risk In Any Activity!
Once Informed & Totally Aware of the Risk,
Every Fool Has the Right to Kill or Injure Themselves as They See Fit!
 
hmm, well you did ask for a linux system and that is what he does, give him some time, he got back to me pretty quick.

G



You Have The Obligation to Inform One Honestly of the risk, And As a Person
You Are Committed to Educate Yourself to the Total Risk In Any Activity!
Once Informed & Totally Aware of the Risk,
Every Fool Has the Right to Kill or Injure Themselves as They See Fit!
 
Ok now I see that this smootwall is a standalone firewall so no os required ... aaah to be young and to have time to play with linux again ... where have the years gone ... [;)]

We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
 
The nice thing about Linux is its associated freedoms, including freedom of intellectual endeavour - you don't have to be young for that. Anyway, freedom of choice is also another benefit of going the Linux route, as opposed to the lock-in one has with the M$ route - here's another option for you, which I found very useful in its original 'e-smith' guise, and is a useful alternative should you dislike Smoothwall:
http://contribs.org/modules/phpwiki/index.php/Downloads
 
I was just reading through the smootwall forums and looking through the funcitonalities and it looks very good ... will look at the other one now ... is one better then the other ... what's diffrent ...

BTW: anyone using SmoothWall .. like it/love it/hate it ??



We are Telkom - Resistance is Futile - You will be Assimilated
 
blob as far as i know i have replied to you :)

i was waiting for your reply ... im happy to cut you or anyone else a CD ...

the system will in a few days do auto account rotation when capped and has the ability to load balance and put the brakes on bandwidth ... this helps shape or unshape the traffic as you may wish .. if all p2p is going down a dedicated line say 64kbs you get better performance than when it is shareing the link with other traffic .,.. it also allows you to configure it as a PDC for those M$ retards ...
 
I'm wondering myself.

I use a WinXP machine as a server. The only problem I have is when I am browsing http and someone else on the network is playing games. The person playing games will lag if I hit a http site that pulls in at the full 512 speeds of ADSL.

<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">
 
I hate that will be playing cs and someone browseing will make my ping jump to 600-1000, usually i have a ping of 25 so the fluctuation is huge. I don't run a server though just straight peer to peer with the router as a gateway.

There is no peace without war!!!
 
loosecannon are you going to do the right thing and release your distro under the GPL or will you be trying to extort $ for the priviledge? [;)]

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.telkom.fokkensuig.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
www.hellkom.co.za
Read about MaD of hellkom being sued for R5million by Telkom:
http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4316
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by BlobNow</i>
<br />I really dislike linux as it is highly user unfriendly ...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Compare smoothwall and a windows based firewall and then come and tell me SW in not user friendly [:o)]

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.telkom.fokkensuig.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
www.hellkom.co.za
Read about MaD of hellkom being sued for R5million by Telkom:
http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4316
 
it is all GPL except for the management console (java binary) that locks the system to a IP/Hostname and i extort bucks for this (serial number) but for a small network /28 or greater (16pcs) its unlocked ... you can use the system without the management console if you dont mind editing config files by hand ...

it is all standard linux fare with some modifications (patches available for download/on request)
im thinking about GPLing the MC once i am generating a income on the services side ... i gotta eat ...
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by loosecannon</i>
<br />it is all GPL except for the management console (java binary) that locks the system to a IP/Hostname and i extort bucks for this (serial number) but for a small network /28 or greater (16pcs) its unlocked ... you can use the system without the management console if you dont mind editing config files by hand ...

it is all standard linux fare with some modifications (patches available for download/on request)
im thinking about GPLing the MC once i am generating a income on the services side ... i gotta eat ...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">


Yah ok then .... I'll call off Mr. Stallman ... he was already casing your joint.

So its free beer for small networks &lt;16? If so, you should let people donate to support its development ... I certainly would if the product warrents the support.

I need my home traffic routed and prioritised rather badly ;)

Maybe I can get you some business deals for larger networks ... but I have to give it the hArTh-SOA (TM) first ;)

-Information anarchist-
www.sentechhatesfreespeech.org.za
I support:
www.telkom.fokkensuig.co.za
www.poopband.co.za
www.hellkom.co.za
Read about MaD of hellkom being sued for R5million by Telkom:
http://www.myadsl.co.za/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4316
 
im quite easy (ask my wife) and like free beer and dont mind giviing those that cant afford beer some ...

i need ppl that know what they doing to fine tune improve it so that free beer is not so free ... i am happy that you help bugfix it ... all i need is a plan to get you a CD drop me a mail and ill reply with some screen shots and more info ...

it does BW management Ingress/Egress shaped in and allocated to pools can handle 5 ADSL links at a time (5 Tos flags 0,2,4,8,16) uses racoon for IPSEC and GRE for tunnels (IPSEC tunnels cannot pass routing info) that said you can use IPSEC to create a staticaly routred tunnel ... it has RIP/BGP/OSPF (hoping to set up a BGP route reflector some time to do smart cap busting)

rodents wireless drivers are built into the kernel and it is really plug and play (then pray for BW with sentech)

does dyndns has apache for runing websites and sendmail for mailserver (sendmail compiled with LDAP/SSL/SASL support for smtp auth and simple config [web based])

there is no linux interaction the root shell is vtysh (zebra so it is more a cisco than linux a start-shell command will fire up bash)
 
Wish I had the time to help with crash-testing, CANNON - I'm with you guys in spirit, though...[:p]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X