On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:22:28 +1300, Matthew Gregan wrote: > At 2005-01-21T15:12:26+1300, yuri wrote: > > I would never put a desktop OS on a box that has a modem *and* a NIC. > > The only reason a box would have both is when it's acting as a > > gateway, in which case a firewall OS is called for. > > Rubbish. What about, for example, a desktop system that's attached to a > LAN but uses a modem for dial-up VPN access occasionally? The same > basic configuration could be two machines connected via the LAN (e.g. to > share files) with one of the machines using the modem for Internet > access?
Okay, "never" is too strong a word. IPCop and Smoothwall both handle VPNs. Two machines on a LAN sharing files could benefit from a third machine on the same LAN providing internet gateway. This third machine would be running a firewall OS. The nice thing about Linux is that it can provide a kernel for either a Desktop OS, a Firewall OS or a Server OS, so your desktops, servers and firewall can all be linux based if you're that much into the penguin. I still maintain that in an ideal situation, a distro like Mandrake would not be the one protecting your LAN from the big bad internet. Mandrake is a nice desktop though. Yuri -- ** WARNING to mailing list repliers ** Gmail over-rides "Reply-To:" field. Check your "To:" address before sending reply to this post.
