On November 4, 2005 12:11, Rick Kunath wrote:
> deedee E wrote:
> > I still have an old computer (i486) running Windows 98 with
> > some legacy Windows and DOS software -- 52Mb of RAM and 4Gb hard
> > disk. I believe, but am not sure, there is one i586 left with 128Mb
> > of RAM and two 6Gb hard drives that I still need to wipe the hard
> > drives before I recycle it. I'll have to look. However, you need to
> > be specific as to the capabilities of the "junk." Some junk is
> > junkier than others, and my junk is particularly junky.
>
> I have my network running on a P1 133 and a 1.2 GB hard drive, it'll run
> on a 486 too. I can saturate my 10/100 network with cached files easily,
> and the old machine can handle anything I've thrown at it.
>
> > I believe the i586, if I still have it, has both a serial and ethernet
> > port.
>
> This would be a great machine to use for the job.
>
> > I don't think the i586 has wireless.
>
> You just add a wireless access point to IP Cop to make the wireless
> work. You can either add the wireless AP to the protected "green" LAN
> interface, or add another Ethernet NIC and put it on a protected
> separate network ("blue".) You can have up to 4 Ethernet ports on IP Cop
> (with dial-up that'd be 3.) Port 1 is the "red" or WAN (Internet) input,
> port 2 is the "green" or protected LAN output, the third is optional and
> can be an "orange" sort of a DMZ for local servers on the Internet but
> safe from the LAN, and the 4th also optional "blue" is a separate
> protected network for wireless, so that the wireless users can't get to
> the safe "green" users.
>
> Sounds complicated, but it's all simple point and click GUI setup.
>
> www.ipcop.org is the firewall's home page.
...I'm running an ipcop firewall for a high speed connection serving 3 desktops, with the web cache enabled, on a 400MHz 486, 384MB RAM, and it works great. It's a very lightweight distro, no non-essential packages or services, just firewall stuff. Very easy to install and configure. I don't think the web cache would work with 52MB of of RAM, but otherwise the 486 machine would make a perfectly good ipcop machine. That's an odd amount of RAM, though. Did you mean 512? In that case, you'd be all set, including the cache, which would be a great help on a dialup. When you're far enough along, you could also configure the cache (squid) to block ads, which would help even more. The P-I would work great too. Probably even overkill! The only problem I ran into with ipcop is that you can't change the number of interfaces once it's installed. First time, I installed it with just the green (lan) and red (internet) interfaces. Then I wanted to add a wireless AP, and use ipcops ability to wall it off on a separate blue interface with selective control of traffic between the two (to keep wardrivers off my lan). I found I had to reinstall ipcop to make this change. Better to set it up that way upfront if you plan on doing it, even if you don't have the AP at the time. But then, the install is so easy (I think it took about 30 minutes, most of which was time for me to understand the different interfaces and how to set them up), a reinstall is no big deal. -- Ron ronhd at users dot sourceforge dot net Opinions expressed here are all mine.
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