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What would be a good, secure distro to work as a router?

A

Ace69

Senior member
I want a solid, secure distro that would make a good router for 2 computers. I was running the Clark Connect Red Hat distro, but I recently did some things that I shouldn't have (hint...don't do a --nodeps option while trying to install a rpm that the dependencies don't check out. 😕 ) I now am going to see if I can implement packet forwarding into my next distro so that I can learn everything myself instead of some other company doing everything for me. So.....any suggestions? I don't want to use E-smith either because that is basically like Clark Connect.

Is there any clear advantage over any particular distro for packet forwarding, IP masquerading, etc? I am leaning towards Red Hat 7.2 because that is what I am most familiar with, but I am up for a challenge. Any informative replies?
 
This isn't exaclty what you were asking, buuuut, check out freesco if you haven't heard of it. It boots it's Linux OS from a Floppy, and all it needs to run as a Router is:
TWO NICS of One Nic and One Modem
6 Megs Ram
386+
No HD
Floppy Drive

It works great for me
Freesco
 
I like OpenBSD. But if you have to stay with Linux, I would go slack or debian. They are usually smaller and have tighter integration.
 
Debian kicks ass, it may take some reading TFM to get everything going but it's easy as hell to maintain once it's setup.
 
I would recommed the Freesco or E-smith installs myself...used them both and they work great... the E-SMITH is if you want extra features like email server, web server, file server etc...

For JUST ROUTING, Freesco is the way to go.

There are also lots of other FLOPPY ONLY installs of Linux desiged for this work...

A floppy install is nice, because they basically load everything into memory and there is no way for someone to change anything on your system, even if they broke into it, its all in memory so a reboot would clear it back to the previous state.
 
If time is an issue, I'd just go with what you know and read as much as possible about how to trim it down to just what you want, and then how to secure it. The basic tools you will be working with for the main function of this box (iptables, kernel NAT/masq features, etc.) will be the same everywhere.

Asking a question like this will get you as many different responses as there are people who respond to the thread. 🙂

If secure is what you're after, out-of-the-box security from distribution to distribution shouldn't matter, because you're going to have to do extra work no matter what. The distros suggested so far vary widely in how secure they are by default, but none of them can implement default security that will work for all types of users....each person's needs just differ too much.

 


<< Asking a question like this will get you as many different responses as there are people who respond to the thread >>


I thought that I could get some good information from my post. I ASSUMED that there would be no flaming, just alot of different opinions with different advantages and disadvantages in each post.

I have started to use FreeSCO and I can't quite get it up and running because it is not recognizing my Linksys LNE100TX. I will probably have to go in and specify the I/0 range and IRQ, which shouldn't be too bad. I did get my 3COM up and running and the internet connection is working smooth. Now I just need to get the DHCP server on it working for my 2 other computers to hook up.

If I have too much trouble with the thing, I may just go back to Red Hat and see what I can do there. The only thing bad about FreeSCO is that it doesn't have SSH implemented so I have to physically go over to the box and do everything from there instead of my main computer (which has a more comfortable chair 😉 ). Is there a way to implement SSH into FreeSCO?
 


<< I thought that I could get some good information from my post. I ASSUMED that there would be no flaming, just alot of different opinions with different advantages and disadvantages in each post. >>



Well it looks like you're getting info so far, and there have been no flames, so your assumptions were safe. 🙂 I didn't mean to imply that asking the question is wrong--far from it. It was just a caution that you might get so many different replies that there will be no clear consensus, leaving you with more research to do--the avoidance of which, I assumed, was the point of the question. 🙂

I wonder if it's possible to make your own ramdisk modeled after Freesco and other similar installs...only including ssh. Probably more trouble than it's worth though.

The only reason I wouldn't recommend Slackware and Debian would be learning curve issues...from a technical standpoint they are at least as good, and probably better than, Redhat. If you're a quick learner, then by all means try these out.

I've never tried a floppy only distro, but I can see clear advantages. It sounds like there are others out there, surely one of them has ssh by default. 🙂
 
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