advice on how to setup my intranet/internet connections! Please advise!

Ender510

Golden Member
Sep 3, 2000
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Here is what I have and hope to accomplish and I was hoping that any experts can advise on the best solution. I have a static IP and DSL. I currently plan to have:

(I also have an SMC Barricade 4 port DSL/Cable Modem Router)

Machines:
1) Linux Box running Mandrake v8
2) Win98SE - mostly for a game machine / may do a dual boot partition w/ linux
3) WinME - primarily to surf the web, word processing (for parents)
4) Windows NT 4.0 Server / Win2K soon - Laptop for Work

I would like to use my linux box to do do web serving, ftp, mail server, ssh, etc.

My questions now...

1) What to do about the firewall? Is the SMC Barricade sufficient enough to work against attacks?
2) How should I setup the IPs? Should I have the SMC Barricade be the DHCP server for all machines? (laptop is not a big concern, it is setup as DHCP client)includnig the mandrake linux?
3) Should I setup the linux box to give out the IPs for the other computers?
4) I have 2 30 GIG hard drives and not sure where to place them. Should I place these in the linux box or the Win98 box?

The reason why I am not sure abuot question #4.. well, what would happen in the case I want to take my computer over to a friend's house.. it wouldn't be convenient to take the linux box.. because of the file format. For example, if I just wanted to do a HD to HD copy of data. Also on the intranet, that would mean I would need to copy/ftp files over unless I use samba if the HDs are in the linux box, right?

I plan on also doing 4-5 web servers and 2 of those having majordomo lists and mail servers as well.

Any suggestions on the optimal setup?