[snip]
conventional wisdom says keep all unnecessary software off your firewall.
It should be as simple and clean as possble with minimal risk of
compromise.
i thought that was probably the case...
i think that the ipcop and imap server idea can go on hold for now. i've plenty of other things to learn (still). and picked up plenty more last night. so no worries about not doing the demo either. it's good to know, though, that there are all these options for a rainy day.
Adding other software to ipcop is not a simple task, as it has to be
compiled on another machine and then added via scp.
It is possible to build a gateway/firewall and add other software to it, if you want to ignore the "conventional wisdom" I refer to above. ClarkConnect, and SME server take this approach to a certain extent.
http://www.clarkconnect.org/projects/home.php
<quote>ClarkConnect transforms standard PC hardware into a dedicated
broadband gateway and easy-to-use server. The award-winning Linux-based
solution includes firewall and security tools, along with file, print,
web, e-mail, proxy, antivirus, antispam, content filtering and VPN
servers.
The ClarkConnect system can act as a firewall/gateway for your network, or as a standalone server on your LAN. <quote>
(Clark Connect is one of those companies that now have a GPL free edition and a Commercial Edition with added features. When i last used it several versions ago it used standard redhat packages, and was built using a hacked redhat. I don't know what the current position is. It made adding software and services very easy if you knew redhat systems.)
for sme server see here:
http://www.e-smith.org/
(SME server started life as e-smith, a gpl free system. It was bought by Mitel networks and like CC has a free GPl version and an enhanced commercial version)
[Cheapest option is the free copy of Virtual PC ms gave me a few weeks ago, which apparently will run linux (though it's not listed as supported on the case ;-) ) but I don't really see that as the answer.]
Roger
