On Monday 15 December 2003 01:20 pm, JoeHill wrote: > I do think you could come pretty close, though, to the price of one of > those Linksys things in doing some shopping around for old hardware and > using one of the Linux firewall solutions. More work, maybe a few extra > bucks, but in the end a more permanent and flexible situation. Hell, I've > seen 10/100 NICs for 10 bucks, and that's *Canadian*, LOL!
Keeping in mind the experience of many buying "cheap" LG-CDROMS, I am not sure that I would recommend someone trying to build such a device with Linux, especially if they have to buy possibly dodgy hardware. I recently recommended the purchase of a fairly expensive (in comparison) modem (external real modem) to a friend because cheap Win-modems are simply not the bargain that their price would suggest. For someone unfamiliar with the trials of loading drivers and hardware compatibility with Linux, such an endeavor could prove to be a lengthy experience. Again, I would not suggest that it is impossible to put something together, but I would not recommend that someone inexperienced with doing that kind of stuff attempt to do it out of the gate. > The OP *did* say they were into tinkering, IIRC. Yes, but again, considering the strategy of interlocking lines of defense, a hardware router appliance is not a bad idea, IMO, even if you want to run a dedicated firewall. It is, if nothing else, a $50 additional layer of security for a network. Well worth the price as far as I am concerned. Especially since it will keep most of the routine virus/worm/script kiddie traffic out by itself, leaving you with only the dedicated bad actors to worry about. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
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