Here's a message I originally posted on Tuesday. I'm reposting
it in the hope that somebody out there cares about my firewall
saga.
-----
Bob Miller wrote:
> This is a bit long, so here are the main points.
>
> * Coyote Linux makes setting up a firewall way too easy.
> * The Linuxcare Bootable Business Card rocks.
> * My firewall uses 32 watts.
> * Yet another failed tech startup.
> * Diverse tales of hardware acquisition and assembly.
Here's an update.
I spent the weekend trying to make Coyote do things it doesn't do.
Specifically, I wanted to:
Put an sshd on it so I don't have to use telnet.
Give home machines static IP addresses via DHCPD
Put a DNS cache on it
Put a DNS server on it to give names to the machines
on the LAN
Hang a whiteboard in my office. (Oops, sorry, not Linux
content. (-: )
Anyway, I messed around for quite a while, and learned that LRP
packages do not plug in to Coyote. The startup scripts for Coyote are
completely different. I got sshd working, and started reading about
djbdns (Bind is 400K, djbdns is 28K, and we're limited to a single
floppy, so djbdns is the obvious choice).
I also learned about superformat, which will make a floppy hold 1680K
instead of 1440K.
Then I noticed that the Unix version of Coyote is 1.27, while the
Windows version is 1.20. I built a 1.27 disk, and it came with two
new features:
ability to format disk to 1680K size
sshd
Oops, I'd wasted all that time. (-:
So I built a brand new 1.27 disk and threw away the disk I'd
painstakingly customized, then edited /etc/dhcpd.conf to give several
machines static private IP addresses, then I put up djbdns on one of
the machines with static IP. Is anybody here using djbdns? Wow, it's
as idiosyncratic as its creator!
So, once again, the lesson I failed to learn is, don't tinker. (-:
On Friday, my cubemate had warned me that LRP systems are nothing
but time sinks. I'd said, "Yeah, but I only spent five minutes
configuring the software." Well, he was right. I've now spent
a whole weekend on it.
Other "upgrading pays off" news: I bought a copy of MacOS 9.1 on
Friday, the last day before OS X was available. That allowed me to
run the AirPort Setup Utility on my Mac, and the latest AirPort
Setup Utility includes a firmware upgrade for the AirPort that
fixed most of its buggy behavior. So my AirPort is happier now.
And the whiteboard is up. Covered with router setup notes.
--
Bob Miller K<bob>
kbobsoft, LLC, software consulting
http://kbobsoft.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
