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Linux internet gateway for LAN (12 posts)

Craig Rush Posted 9 years ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

I have been asked to get a Linux machine to connect to the internet and have a LAN with about 10 computers (win95/98) to connect to it for everyone to gain internet access.

The main problem that I am having is that the machine that I have been given is a bit old and slow. 800MB of disk space and about 32MB RAM (I think, not sure on that one). I have tried Mandrake 9.0 and 7.2, so far can only get 7.2 in low graphic mode to work. 9.0 seems to go into high graphic mode automatically and the screen goes nuts.

What are the programs that I would need and should I do it completely in text mode? The main reason apart from space will be that it won't have a screen attached etc when working so any graphic program etc will be pointless.

What's the best way to tackle this problem?

Thanks,

Craig :-)

Anonymous Posted 9 years ago Joined: N/A

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

Hi Craig

The perfect solution is freesco 2.7 or 3.1. After fiddling with this program for two months or more. I find what it can do is amazing.

Try this, connect up to 9 LAN, 9 dial-in modems, print server. Telnet in admin. It has it own built in firewall & NAT. Best of all will run with a 386+ 8mb+ and only a floppy drive. No need for a screen or keyboard. Easy to set up using old ISA or PCI NIC. Use a sixteen port switch to connect the ten computers or if money is short a couple of old isa/pci MB running freesco 3.1 as bridge. (I have one with 9 NIC in it 10mb, if you want 100mb you will need PCI).

Hope this helps

Russell

Anonymous Posted 9 years ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

Mandrake is not a linux Distro I would use for internet sharing. It uses too much power and is designed as a graphical OS.

I have a linux computer at home which is a gateway. It runs Red Hat 7.2 with NO GUI.

If you just want it as a gateway and nothing else check out smoothwall and Clark Connect. Both of these are built for that very purpose.

Good Luck

Caveman

Ari Finander Posted 9 years ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

Would recommend downloading a linux distribution that is made just for the purposes you're looking for. Two come immediately to mind, two of which I have used without trouble:

Smoothwall
www.smoothwall.org
Highly recommended for old hardware if all you need is an Internet gateway and firewall for a LAN. I've used it and think it is excellent.

E-smith
www.e-smith.org
I've used this as a file and print server and been very happy with it, and it is designed to be an Internet gateway and firewall, as well. It has higher hardware requirements than does smoothwall. If all you want is an Internet gateway/firewall, then use smoothwall.

Some others I've heard of (and that's it, just seen them mentioned in discussions on linux based gateway/firewall distributions) but not used:

ClarkConnect
www.clarkconnect.org

IpCop
ipcop.org

Hope this helps,

Ari

Steve Massey Posted 9 years ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

G'day Craig,

Russel is right on the money ,go to www,freesco.org. I use it on a home lan with 3 nic's and dial out, base setup is simple and fast .Boot time on a 486 from hdd is about the same as a cisco router.

Regards
steve

Craig Rush Posted 9 years ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

Thanks for the advice so far. Smoothwall sounds exactly what I want.

I have downloaded the iso image for smoothwall 0.9.9 and have burnt it to a CD. I need to make a bootable floppy as I can't boot from the CD. The only thing is that I need the floppy image inside the iso image but can't get any files from it. I have tried to open the iso images but this doesn't work.

How can I open the image in either windows or linux to then create a bootable floppy or is there a floppy image that I can download?

Thanks again,
Craig

Squarker Posted 8 years, 11 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

How did you burn it on to a CD? What's on the CD? Has it got just the one file on the CD? If it has, you haven't burnt it correctly.

What CD burning software did you use to burn it? Let me know and I'll help you out cause I've just tried smoothwall out on my gateway box.

Squarker

Craig Rush Posted 8 years, 11 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

Your assumption is correct.

I downloaded the iso and burnt it as is to the cd. It took me a while to work it out and find the nessasary programs (rawwrite) and to burn it correctly. I have now successfully installed smoothwall.

The problem that I am facing at the moment is this. I connect the old machine to my home machine with XP on it. The network card says that all is well with the connection but I cannot see the smoothwall in my network folder. Also when I enter the https setting in my explorer browser on the XP machine it can't find it.

I have set both computers with the net address of 192.168.0.50 and 51. I can ping each of the machines with no problems. I believe my problem lies with the network settings.

I am not sure if it has anything to do with it, but the smoothwall machine doesn't have a modem(XP does). As it will be set up for the school that I am doing it for I will eventually get a modem, but at the moment I just want to get the smoothwall admin page.

Is there anything that I need to think about with the configuration. I have looked at the manuals and online but can't find anything that might help me.

Thanks Craig

Squarker Posted 8 years, 11 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

I've played around with a few different distro's while setting up my gateway and I've finally settled with mandrake 9,in text mode and I do all my settings/configurations via a program called webmin on my other PC. (gateway PC is a 200Mhz,1gig Hd,64MB Ram) The main reason I went back to mandrake is I've used it on my PC for a while and I'm pretty confident with it.

Anyway, back to your question. I've got mine connected to a Linux box and a WinME box so I don't know much about XP but heres a few things I would check.

Seeing as you can ping, I'd say it's more of a setting problem too. But check your cable connections anyway ie. eth1(red) is for your modem and eth0 (green) is for your hub.On my PC,eth1 is my top NIC.

Have you set your 'netmask' on all PC's? ie.255.255.255.0. Have you set your 'gateway'? set your gateway number on your XP box to the IP of eth0. I can't remember if I had to change this with smoothwall but I did with mandrake, (Try it anyway as it might just work).

Have you got a firewall on XP? If so,is it blocking your smoothwall? Let me know how you go with all this. If it still doesn't work I'll try think of some more things to look at.

Squarker

Squarker Posted 8 years, 11 months ago Joined: 12 years, 5 months ago

Re: Linux internet gateway for LAN

Just another thought.

If you wanted to try mandrake 9 again via text mode and webmin, and you don't mind posting your yahoo nic or email address, I can give you step by step instructions while you're doing it one night if you want.

Squarker

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