[Tfug] router/firewall distro

[Sam Hart]

begin  quote: On 02-09-11, James A. Gronowski wrote:

> I have an older machine (P133) that I'd like to turn into a router/firewall.  It only has 24MB RAM (potentially a little more may be added) and 2 170MB hard drives.  I'm going to put in between 3-5 NICs.  It also has a CD-rom drive, if that helps.

Like Harry said, the HDD is just extra heat and power-consumption you wont 
really need (unless you want to get fancy and have a printer/mail/whatever 
server on it as well ;-)

Many router distros work with as little as 8MB ram, so 24 is plenty.

> So, 1) Are 170/340MB enough space?  
> 	2) Will the machine be able to handle a load like that?
> 	3) Any specialty distros anyone can recommend?  Easy and Fast preferable. 

I use CoyoteLinux (http://www.coyotelinux.com/) on a Cyrix (woah) 66 Mhz 
w/ 8MB of RAM and two NICs to a cheapy 6-port switch (actually picked that 
up at Bookman's for 8 bucks), and have been very pleased with it.

CoyoteLinux is /very/ easy to set up, and virtually no maintenance. As 
long as you don't need anything fancy, it's great.

Others that I know and recommend:
	http://www.freesco.org/
	http://people.freebsd.org/~picobsd/picobsd.html (BSD-based!)
	http://www.sentryfirewall.com/ (this is CD based, and quite a bit 
		more functional)
	http://www.frazierwall.com/ (originally based on LRP & Coyote)
	http://www.bbiagent.net/ (Linux 2.4 kernel-based)
	http://www.microbsd.net/ (BSD-based! Better than PicoBSD IMHO)

You can also find others searching on Freshmeat.net, but I have no 
practical experience with most of those.

Personally (and this is just me) I would recommend avoiding LRP. Last I 
checked, it was still very complicated to set up and use (which is why 
there are so many LRP spinoffs ;-)

-- 
Sam Hart
University/Work addr. <hart@physics.arizona.edu>
Personal addr. <criswell@geekcomix.com>
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