Building A Firewall Computer

[mddolloff]

I am thinking about taking my Pentium 133 and making it a firewall before reaching my DSL router. Do people recomend doing this? If so does anyone know where I can get an idea on how to set up such a firewall? Thanks.

 

[icexe]

most routers nowadays have a firewall already built-in. you might want to look into that first.

if you do decide to go with the PC Firewall route, here's what i had in a nutshell.

You basically need a PC with 2 network cards and a software firewall/router

An AMD K5-233 w/ 128Megs of RAM
2 NIC's (one to cable modem, the other to LAN)
Win2k
WinRoute PRO (software firewall)
1.6G HDD, CD-ROM, floppy.
no keyboard, monitor or mouse..(not really needed once you get up and running)

The box was complete overkill for the task. A P-133 with 32Megs of RAM would have been overkill.

WinRoute also can be configured to do DHCP and DNS Forwarding for your LAN computers, though I had a different box doing those on my LAN.

There are tons of firewall software out there, many of them free.

 

[Monoman]

you can do the above mentioned by icexe or if you are willing to learn.. jump into the open sourse world of routers.

there are all sorts of flavors... they all require a basic pc, 2 nic's, floppy, and cdrom

just to name a few.....
Linux:

Freesco
LRP
a deutsch one

BSD:

ClosedBSD (easiers IMO )
NetBoz (what I use)


There are several more out there and to find them just google the main topic

Mitch


ps.. the NetBoz requires a 266 with 128m ram. all configuration is done from SSH or webadmin


EDIT.. spelling

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

I would pick up a cheapo broadband router (or use the one you have if it is capable). $30 or so, uses a fraction of the electricity, is possibly quieter, and almost no work to maintain (vs. a computer which you have to worry about being hacked etc.)

 

[osage]

if you consider open scource HERE is a good place to start looking for firewall software.