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Linux....as router??

B

Bloodstein

Senior member
After a loooong time, I have finally decided to move on to broadband and get ADSL. I have (or would have soon...) a simple LAN at home consisting of 3 PCs, one of which runs Linux. Now, I'm not sure if I really need a router of if I can use the Linux machine to function as a router and get a simple ADSL modem instead....I'm not a networking expert but I'm thinking of it as a good learning curve. I'd jus like to get your viewpoints on whether this is a good idea. How hard is it really to set up Red Hat 9 as a router (more or less)?

In case I decide to get a router, I've got two models that i'm considering - DLINK DSL-500 and Dynalink RTA220. These would be plugged into the Linux box so please advice on how hard it is to install them on a Linux box? (ie. driver availability?)

Thanks

p.s. cuz this doesn't strictly fall under networking or operating systems, I've posted them in both forums. Please don't remove it as I'd like to hear the views of both communities.
 
redhat is really easy to set up as a router/firewall... i would not buy a router if you have a nix box sitting around not doing anything... i would recommend looking at this software shorewall firewall You may also want to grab a switch (or hub) i prefer a switch and set up a small lan. The router will need 2 network cards one that goes to the adsl modem and another that goes to the switch... for networking tips try this site pratically networked

let me know what kinds of info you need. there are tons of linux sites out there and I can help quite a bit should you need it
 
Linux for home routing:

Advantages:
1. Cheap if you have a old computer laying aroung
2. More versitile then a store bought router
3. Using stuff like shorewall linux or Clark Connect network firewall appliance.
4. Learning experiance
5. Can be more secure (much much more secure depending on how much work you want to go thru) if you do a good job.
6. Not always can trust manufactures to do a good job or not leave backdoors. (you have to be pretty paraniod to worry about that, though. Most people have good track records, exept Belkin, who built one that highjacked your browser once every 8 hours or so and sent you to a advertisment site, fixable with a firmware upgrade, though.)

disavantages
1. Expensive if you have to buy hardware. A 100-200 dollar Via mini-itx motherboard with embedded proccessor with 2 on board nics makes a ideal router hardware, but with a case and extras is still more expensive then a average home router.
2. Store bought routers are easier to set up and have less confusing options.
3. Steep learning curve if you try to build one from scratch.
4. Have to keep everything up to date (store routers have the same issue, though)
5. Easier to make mistakes and screw up security.
 
Unless you are running servers out of your house or doing some sort of fancy port forwarding for SEVERAL machines, I would recommend a cheap router.... if you think that wireless might be in your future, combine it and get a wifi router. If you look around you can get basic wired routers VERY cheap and since you'll be using NAT, you've at least got a quick and easy incoming firewall. If you are looking to block OUTGOING ports, then you might need something fancier, but I'd say that for home use it's hard to beat the $$$/performance ratio of a cheap router.

Joe
 
Originally posted by: Netopia
Unless you are running servers out of your house or doing some sort of fancy port forwarding for SEVERAL machines, I would recommend a cheap router.... if you think that wireless might be in your future, combine it and get a wifi router. If you look around you can get basic wired routers VERY cheap and since you'll be using NAT, you've at least got a quick and easy incoming firewall. If you are looking to block OUTGOING ports, then you might need something fancier, but I'd say that for home use it's hard to beat the $$$/performance ratio of a cheap router.

Joe
Click to expand...


My router cost me 8 bucks and a couple hours of my life(including the drive to the store to get the extra 8 dollar nic card(on sale!!)). How much did yours cost?
 
Originally posted by: drag
Originally posted by: Netopia
Unless you are running servers out of your house or doing some sort of fancy port forwarding for SEVERAL machines, I would recommend a cheap router.... if you think that wireless might be in your future, combine it and get a wifi router. If you look around you can get basic wired routers VERY cheap and since you'll be using NAT, you've at least got a quick and easy incoming firewall. If you are looking to block OUTGOING ports, then you might need something fancier, but I'd say that for home use it's hard to beat the $$$/performance ratio of a cheap router.

Joe
Click to expand...


My router cost me 8 bucks and a couple hours of my life(including the drive to the store to get the extra 8 dollar nic card(on sale!!)). How much did yours cost?
Click to expand...

Mine cost me a little bit more. I got the p133 for free, cannibalized some ram, cannibalized a hard drive, spent a few bucks on a wireless NIC, and spent a few hours getting OpenBSD setup. Cost me a little more than $8, but mine's also a WAP 😉
 
disavantages
1. Expensive if you have to buy hardware. A 100-200 dollar Via mini-itx motherboard with embedded proccessor with 2 on board nics makes a ideal router hardware, but with a case and extras is still more expensive then a average home router.
2. Store bought routers are easier to set up and have less confusing options.
3. Steep learning curve if you try to build one from scratch.
4. Have to keep everything up to date (store routers have the same issue, though)
5. Easier to make mistakes and screw up security.
Click to expand...

Add:

6) Uses up way more electricity than a cheapo router on sale.
7) Noisy.
8) Bigger footprint -- big issue for those who live in cramped quarters.

People you must understand that router sets used to cost upwards of $100 with few discounts many years ago, that's when the idea of using your old 486 for a router came into being an economical idea. Just a few days ago you could get an FMI wireless 4 port router for $20 at your local compusa as posted in the hot deals forum. Heck, it's often cheaper to buy a wired router and disable dhcp just to use it as a switch. Go find another project for your old hardware, a webcam server or something.

 
Originally posted by: vegetation
disavantages
1. Expensive if you have to buy hardware. A 100-200 dollar Via mini-itx motherboard with embedded proccessor with 2 on board nics makes a ideal router hardware, but with a case and extras is still more expensive then a average home router.
2. Store bought routers are easier to set up and have less confusing options.
3. Steep learning curve if you try to build one from scratch.
4. Have to keep everything up to date (store routers have the same issue, though)
5. Easier to make mistakes and screw up security.
Click to expand...

Add:

6) Uses up way more electricity than a cheapo router on sale.
7) Noisy.
8) Bigger footprint -- big issue for those who live in cramped quarters.

People you must understand that router sets used to cost upwards of $100 with few discounts many years ago, that's when the idea of using your old 486 for a router came into being an economical idea. Just a few days ago you could get an FMI wireless 4 port router for $20 at your local compusa as posted in the hot deals forum. Heck, it's often cheaper to buy a wired router and disable dhcp just to use it as a switch. Go find another project for your old hardware, a webcam server or something.
Click to expand...

Mine is soundless, and actually looks pretty cool standing on a desk in my "server room".

Cost me $25 for a P2-233/64MB/2.5 GB and another $10 for a used 3Com 905b card.
A 10 minute install of OpenBSD later, Im up and rocking 😀
 
My router cost me 8 bucks and a couple hours of my life(including the drive to the store to get the extra 8 dollar nic card(on sale!!)). How much did yours cost?
Click to expand...
Sweet! So did someone give you the rest of the hardware or are you just excluding the cost because you already owned it?

I spent $29 for my wired router, which is sitting on the shelf at the moment. My wireless G (Linksys RT54g) cost me $59 on a special from Amamzon (thank you Hot Deals forum).

But I think you guys missed the point of my post. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for a seperate Linux box as router/firewall... I'm just saying that in the average home all of the funtions an average home user would need are available in a stand-alone router for a very cheap price. Just 6 or 8 years ago I paid about $2,000 for an ISDN router that only had a FRACTION of the funtionality of an el cheapo home router today.

Again, for someone who

A) Has the need for more functionality then a stand alone would give

and/or

B) Has the space for an additional small computer

and/or

C) Already has the equipment or only needs a little more

and/or

D) Has or wants to learn how to set one up

and/or

E) Some reason I've overlooked.....


A linux router is probably fine. It just wouldn't my first suggestion to the average person with just a couple of computers in their home.

Joe
 
OTOH....

I've been wanting to costomize a firewall on one particular Linux box that I use as a server... now I know the people to ask when I'm getting stuck! 🙂

Joe
 
Well if you want lots of features AND a easy install check this ClarkConnect out

They have 2 versions, a home (free) version, and a corporate version that has the extra features, but costs.

It's based on redhat or mandrake or something and is compatable with their RPM's and stuff.

Features:
VPN

* IPsec VPN (Office Edition only)
* PPTP VPN (Office Edition only)
* Managed VPN (Office Edition only)

Firewall and Network Security

* Stateful Firewall
* Intrusion detection

Web Server

* Apache web server
* Support for CGI and PHP
* Secure/SSL support

File Services

* FTP server
* Windows file server
* AppleShare file server

E-mail

* POP and IMAP servers
* SMTP server
* Webmail
* Antispam engine
* Antivirus (Office Edition only)

Filtering

* Banner ad blocking
* Web proxy
* Content filtering
* Bandwidth manager

Printing

* Print server support
* Printer sharing for Windows

Easy Configuration

* Web-based configuration
* Optional Webmin package

Network Support

* DSL (including PPPoE)
* Cable Modem
* 802.11b Wireless
* Internal DHCP server
* Caching nameserver
Click to expand...

Although I REALY question the wisdom of running all this stuff on the firewall.


However if you pay attention to it and keep it updated then their shouldn't be any issue.


EDIT:

As far as the router it was a computer I had laying around. Originally I got 5-6 free computers that has bits missing and non of them functioned. I spliced them together to get 3 computers that I messed around with. This computer was the last one I had left. 200 pentium, 64 megs, onboard video, 1 realtech nic card, 1 old 3com and a floppy drive. No harddrive or CDROM. I use the Dachstein LEAF Firewall

It runs completely from memory. You boot up from floppy it loads itself into RAM and then that's it. It has a DHCP server, Nat firewall, DNS server, and a mini http serverfor monitoring it, has packet logs and a traffic monitor (simple usage graph) and a couple other things.
 
Heh, I've setup an OpenBSD firewall for my parrents.
For one thing, it keeps them safe from all the nasties out there, and secondly, with a VPN between them and me, I can help them with VNC whenever they need it 🙂
 
Heh, I've setup an OpenBSD firewall for my parrents.
For one thing, it keeps them safe from all the nasties out there, and secondly, with a VPN between them and me, I can help them with VNC whenever they need it
Click to expand...

I might be missing something.... my router is set to block all external requests EXCEPT those that I specify. I have port forwarding for VNC on seperate ports for each computer in my house and use the desktop number to get to whichever computer I wish... how is that different?

Actually, now I see that one way it's different is VPN. Do you use that for extra level of security? I've also seen people who use VNC tunnelled through SSH... though I don't know the specifics.

I had left. 200 pentium, 64 megs, onboard video, 1 realtech nic card, 1 old 3com and a floppy drive.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it seems that a firewall/router doesn't take much. I have a good friend who has smoothwall setup at his house on an old 486/66 with an 80MB hard-drive... things been chugging away for a couple years now, no problem.

Joe
 
Actually, now I see that one way it's different is VPN. Do you use that for extra level of security? I've also seen people who use VNC tunnelled through SSH... though I don't know the specifics.
Click to expand...

VNC has almost no security in it, so a VPN or ssh tunnel is necessary. I usually use the ssh tunnel method because it's simpler (and using ssh's blowfish encryption and built-in compression speeds it up a bit over slow connections).
 
I usually use the ssh tunnel method because it's simpler (and using ssh's blowfish encryption and built-in compression speeds it up a bit over slow connections).
Click to expand...
In a nutshell (if that's possible) how does one go about tunnelling VNC through SSH? I use VNC on both Windows and Linux.

Joe
 
Since I'm connecting to host beind a Linux router I do it like this: 'ssh username@router -c blowfish -C -L 5900:insideVNChost:5900' and ssh redirects all connections on localhost port 5900 (the port for the first VNC desktop) through the ssh connnection to the router to the inside host on port 5900.1
 
I'm typing this from behind my smoothwall firewall. It's very easy to set up and is even "colour coded" for you.

You download the install cd, boot from it on your router box, and basically just hit okay and next unless you want to set something special up. Select what type of network you want and it takes no time to install (I'm talking less than a minute on a P3 450 with a 2 GB ATA 33 HD). Enable dhcp, reboot and you're set to go.

The nice thing about it is it's all administered through a web interface. All the stats are there and everything. Check it out.
 
I like to tunnel PPP thru SSH personally for a version of VPN.

Both client and server computer can be behind firewalls that completely block all ports.. Except port 22 (or whatever you want to use for SSH). One firewall must allow connections thru this.

You start from the client machine connect to the ssh server and setup PPP over it.

In order to automate it you must have public/private key pairs setup so that you don't have to enter a password to identify yourself. You are going to be connecting thru SSH as root. (also works with SLIP which can be set up userspace so that you don't neccisarially have to be root, but I never done it.) So it may not be the most secure.

Also you have to have PPP configured not to use passwords for incomming connections.

The command is this:

pppd silent 10.0.2.15:10.0.2.2 pty "ssh -t root@remote.computer.com pppd ipcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-remote"

(were 10.0.2.15 = you local computer's NEW PPP IP address, 10.0.2.2 remote computer's NEW PPP ipaddress)
In the client machine you can put this in a script and then run it as a cron job to reconnect the connection if you ever get disconnected.

Something like:
#!/bin/bash

if ping -c 5 10.0.2.2 > /dev/null 2> /dev/null
then
echo "Connection good"
else
echo "Connection bad"
pppd silent 10.0.2.15:10.0.2.2 pty "ssh -t root@remote.computer.com pppd ipcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-remote"
fi
Click to expand...

Or something like that.

Then with the addition of some static routing rules on both network's gateways/routers you can easily connect several different networks over thru the internet. But that will take much to much space to explain. 🙂


The reason I like this is that then you have ALL protocols going thru thisl; X, ftp, http, telnet, VNC etc etc. If you want. I learned about it from here
 
Thankz a lot guys....

I'm feeling kindda brave and have sortta made up ma mind to go with a linux box. I say brave cuz I have little experience with both networking and linux (happen to work with microsoft productz a lot more....no commentz 😛). And these forums seem to be very helpful. My real motivation has been that I'd expose myself more to linux this way...personally, I've not found any other use for my linux box so far (no offence guys).

As for price of routers...folkz, unfortunately, I'm not in US....I live in a small, sortta forgotten country called New Zealand, where the price of a router is a looottt higher than 20 buckz (we prefer to keep the price of our bread and milk low 😉).

Anywayz, I shalt post more in these forumz or message one of u guyz if i run into complicationz.....

Laterz
 
Good luck!

Oh, and there is an 's' key on the keyboard, using it is recommended 🙂 Sorry, had to say it 🙂
 
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