Gateway Question
Hadron Quark
What if any, is the advantage of using a small old pc as a linux
wireless gateway rather than using a small dedicated netgear box which
costs about 60 euro and consumes considerably less power?
yttrx
Just one:
the small old pc will probably last longer than anything netgear
makes.
-----yttrx
Kier
The PC's more flexible/configurable, and if you've already go it, it
costs nothing (except of course the power).
--
Kier
Handover Phist
>
> What if any, is the advantage of using a small old pc as a linux
> wireless gateway rather than using a small dedicated netgear box which
> costs about 60 euro and consumes considerably less power?
IPtables.
--
If I can have honesty, it's easier to overlook mistakes.
-- Kirk, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9
Hadron Quark
Hadron Quark
Hadron Quark
> Hadron Quark :
>>
>> What if any, is the advantage of using a small old pc as a linux
>> wireless gateway rather than using a small dedicated netgear box which
>> costs about 60 euro and consumes considerably less power?
>
> IPtables.
What about them?
yttrx
Netgear is actually one of the better manufacturers of cheap-ass
broken "home" routers.
And honestly, if you didn't know in the first place why one is superior
to the other, then you probably shouldnt be using either.
-----yttrx
Handover Phist
The flexibility of IPtables is way above and beyond what you will get
with any home router appliance.
--
More are taken in by hope than by cunning.
-- Vauvenargues
Linonut
> What if any, is the advantage of using a small old pc as a linux
> wireless gateway rather than using a small dedicated netgear box which
> costs about 60 euro and consumes considerably less power?
Better control over configuration, better logging, can run other
services besides IP masquerade.
Might be more stable, too. My Netgear router seems to go to sleep at
times. (The Linksys one hasn't yet done that.)
--
Actually, Microsoft is sort of a mixture between the Borg and the Ferengi.
Linonut
> Handover Phist <ja...@jason.websterscafe.com> writes:
For a guy who claims to know so much, you sure ask some silly questions.
--
Don't flip the Bozo Bit.
Peter Hayes
You still need to buy a modem to suit your connection unless you're on
dialup and your old PC has one that's compatible with Linux. So that's
two boxes to accommodate instead of one.
--
Peter
Hadron Quark
Both of which are cheap/free and take up about 20th of the space of the
smallest "old pc".
>
> --
>
> Peter
--
William Poaster
I'll say! I thought the IPtables reply was self evident.
--
I used to like a good joke.
What happened?
I thought there was a better way, so I
stopped using Windows & switched to linux.
High Plains Thumper
> Hadron Quark :
> 1998) PC with Smoothwall, and it's been running practically non-stop for
> years. It's survived three moves and is more configurable than most of
> the router appliances I've seen, including those like the better
> Sonicwalls. Being OSS means you get tweaking rights too. I've seen two
> dead Linksys routers leave a friends house while mine has kept on
> truckin.
I bought a Linksys wireless router. It worked 15 minutes, then died. I
returned it from whence I bought it and exchanged it for a D-Link one.
D-Link works fine. I will pro'ly never buy Linksys again.
--
HPT
Peter Hayes
If they're free you can't beat the price, but they'll still take up more
space than a Netgear wireless router.
--
Peter
Thufir
It's not just a gateway, it's a computer which you can use?
I use an Asus WL-330g for wireless networking, as an 802.11b client.
What are you using as a wi-fi adapter? The linksys _router_ can run
linux and thus fill this role. Had I known, I would've gotten the
linksys router for about the same price as the asus adapter.
-Thufir
Linonut
But you can also run other software on them at the same time.
Really depends what you want to do with your "router".
--
"He's dead, Jim!"
Peter Hayes
The Smoothwall/IpCop people counsel very strongly against doing such a
thing. At least, they did so when I ran a Smoothwall machine a few years
back.
--
Peter
Rex Ballard
If that's ALL you want to do is use it as a wireless gateway, then you
are better off with the Netgear box. On the other hand, using the
Linux PC can provide a number of different functions in a single box,
and that may make the Linux PC more attractive.
If you want to use an old PC, you can easily configure it to support
both internal drives and external FireWire and/or USB-2 drives. I have
one PC that can drive 8 drives, and keep them all busy. Since each
drive is about 250 GB or larger, that's two tarabytes. This is more
than most people need, unless of course you want to make complete
rolling backups of several PCs and keep them up to date.
You can also use it as a firewall, e-mail server (pop, imap, smtp),
news server (nntp), and VPN (ipsec) gateway as well. As mentioned in
another reply, IPTables gives you some very tight control over how
things are routed, what gets routed, and who has permissions to access
what services or servers. If your network access provider is willing
to give you a fixed IP address (usually about 5% additional per month),
you can be your own "provider". Some providers also permit connection
to fixed IP addresses through ipsec gateways.
Of course, if you need to buy a newer machine, or you have a better
machine with at least 128 meg of RAM, 10 gig of hard drive, and 500 Mhz
Pentium or faster, you can also use this machine as a basic
workstation. You can even use older machines if you are willing to use
Free Virtual Window Manager, WinMaker, or TWM as your window manager.
Older distributions also have very functional versions of KDE or GNOME
that can run on as little as 64 meg of RAM and 4 gig of hard drive on a
200 Mhz pentium. If you go back to Slackware with TWM, or Open Look
Virtual Window Manager, you can get really fast response on a machine
with 32 meg, 2 gig hard drive, and 100 Mhz pentium. It's ugly, but
it's fast and it's cheap.
You could run Linux on older machines, but most people are using
FreeBSD for those. I have a friend who still has a fully functional
Linux server running on a 486/33 with 16 meg of RAM and a SCSI
controller with 8 16 gig drives attached in RAID-0. He was very upset
when he finally had to reboot it after 3 years, because of a power
failure that outlasted his UPS. When he powered it back up, everything
was running normally and nothing was lost. He actually has two
identical machines.
The advantage of Linux "appliances", as you pointed out, are low power
consumption and ease of configuration. Typically, an applinance will
consume a maximum of 12 watts, usually only 2-3 watts, will generate
very little heat, needs no cooling fan, and can be configured through
it's ethernet port using a web browser. I have one netgear router/wifi
that also includes two USB-2 hard drive ports and functions as a hub as
well as router, firewall, gateway, and WiFi hub. I'd love to get about
3 more.
Linonut
> Linonut <lin...@bone.com> wrote:
>> But you can also run other software on them at the same time.
>>
>> Really depends what you want to do with your "router".
>
> The Smoothwall/IpCop people counsel very strongly against doing such a
> thing. At least, they did so when I ran a Smoothwall machine a few years
> back.
That is not such a worry if you're simply creating an isolated network
(e.g. to do network testing without upsetting the powers that be.)
--
There's no place like ~
Tim Smith
About a millisecond on ping. :-)
More flexible configuration, including some pretty cool QOS things. But not
anything that most people will care about.
However, you can also consider taking the small old PC beyond just being a
gateway. For instance, put Postfix on it and configure that to relay
through your ISP's SMTP server. Then configuring mail clients on your
computers is simple: outgoing SMTP server = 192.168.0.1 (or whatever the IP
is you use for the gateway). If you ever change ISPs, you only have to
change the mail configuration in one place, the gateway, rather than on each
computer.
Put an IMAP server on the gateway machine (trivial with the UW IMAP
server...and I've heard that Dovecot is as easy). Set up fetchmail to grab
your mail from your ISP (and from any other mail accounts you have). Then
you can configure all your other computers to read mail from the IMAP server
on 192.168.0.1. Configure them to store all mailboxes (drafts, sent mail,
trash, etc) on the server. Result: you can now read your email from any of
your computers, and if you reply to message from computer A, then later when
you are on computer B, your mail client there will know that the message has
been read and replied to.
Add Apache, and install a webmail package, and you can then provide yourself
with access to your email from outside. (Or you can configure the gateway
to allow IMAP access over SSL from outside).
Add in procmail and you can do nice mail filtering on the gateway, and use
spamassassin for spam filtering. Now you've got central filters and spam
handling, so you don't have to go edit mail filters on all your machines
whenever you want to change a rule, or train all your machines to recognize
spam.
Buy a large external drive and add it to the gateway. Make it available via
samba or webdav or nfs. You now have a convenient place to back up things
from all your other computers. Or a convenient drop point for moving files
between computers.
Keep your calendar and address book and todo list on the gateway machine.
Now if you add a contact, or complete an item, or need to change an
appointment, you can do it from whatever machine you are on, and have it
show up everywhere.
If all you want is a simple network gateway, there really isn't any good
reason to pick a Linux PC over a dedicated gateway. However, it is very
useful to have a home server providing a variety of services, one of which
happens to be network gateway. Linux is terrific in this role.
--
--Tim Smith
Jim
weary over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore...:
it wouldn't have been a WRT54g or a WRK54g would it? These models both have
fucked firmware, I've had both models, and will never go back to Linksys. I
now run on a noname Chinese router that's solid as a rock and runs on
Linux.
--
When all else fails... use a hammer.
Some people are like Slinkies; they serve no particular purpose,
But they bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
Hadron Quark
Great info : I'm half tempted. I'm already set up with leafnode,
fetchmail and procmail on the one machine so I guess it would be pretty
trivial to set all that up on the server instead. How would I point my
development machine to the servers nnmail directories though : I am a
noob when it comes to networking linux... can the servers file system be
transparently mounted?
>
> --
> --Tim Smith
--
ws
>
> it wouldn't have been a WRT54g or a WRK54g would it? These models both have
> fucked firmware, I've had both models, and will never go back to Linksys. I
> now run on a noname Chinese router that's solid as a rock and runs on
> Linux.
Well, you needn't have returned it, you should have just installed your
own Linux on it. ;-)
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3562391
Freedom to choose.
Cheers,
ws
--
change to leews to mail
High Plains Thumper
Mine was a WRT54g. I gathered it was a hardware failure that did it in. I
even downloaded the latest firmware and did a disaster reset and download
of the firmware, in case firmware "burn" failed. It worked the first 15
minutes plugged in, then stopped communicating with the broadband modem.
Neither hard link nor wireless worked. I chalked it up as cheap hardware,
learned my lesson, returned for a refund and bought the D-Link.
D-Link has run flawlessly since, a search on the net turns up it does not
seem to have the hardware Q/A issues the Linksys did.
Yes, freedom to choose.
--
HPT
Thufir
[...]
> > I bought a Linksys wireless router. It worked 15 minutes, then died. I
> > returned it from whence I bought it and exchanged it for a D-Link one.
> > D-Link works fine. I will pro'ly never buy Linksys again.
> >
>
> it wouldn't have been a WRT54g or a WRK54g would it? These models both have
> fucked firmware, I've had both models, and will never go back to Linksys. I
> now run on a noname Chinese router that's solid as a rock and runs on
> Linux.
> --
> When all else fails... use a hammer.
Err, what's the brand for that no-name? ;)
Seriously, just peruse, err, "linuxgadgets.com" (I forget the actual
URL) for linux routers which double as clients?
-Thufir
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
I had a linksys wired router for several years, upgraded to a wireless a
year or so ago. Not a lick of trouble from either one, 24x7x365
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
Life imitates art, but does it have to imitate satire?
Thufir
[...]
> > If all you want is a simple network gateway, there really isn't any good
> > reason to pick a Linux PC over a dedicated gateway. However, it is very
> > useful to have a home server providing a variety of services, one of which
> > happens to be network gateway. Linux is terrific in this role.
>
> Great info : I'm half tempted. I'm already set up with leafnode,
> fetchmail and procmail on the one machine so I guess it would be pretty
> trivial to set all that up on the server instead. How would I point my
> development machine to the servers nnmail directories though : I am a
> noob when it comes to networking linux... can the servers file system be
> transparently mounted?
Hmm. I have two boxes: arrakis and geidiprime. Arrakis has an 80gig
hard drive and 40gig hard drive, cd-rom and cd-burner, a celeron 2.3ghz
CPU and 512Mb ram. Geidiprime is an ancient 486 which I got used.
Which should be the gateway? The gateway, as someone above aluded,
would always stay, or nearly always, stay on. I was going to make
geidiprime the gateway and put leafnode et. al. on arrakis. Now I'm
rethinking that...
-Thufir
Mark Kent
Handover Phist <ja...@jason.websterscafe.com> espoused:
> Hadron Quark :
>> Handover Phist <ja...@jason.websterscafe.com> writes:
>>
>>> Hadron Quark :
>>>>
>>>> What if any, is the advantage of using a small old pc as a linux
>>>> wireless gateway rather than using a small dedicated netgear box which
>>>> costs about 60 euro and consumes considerably less power?
>>>
>>> IPtables.
>>
>> What about them?
>
> The flexibility of IPtables is way above and beyond what you will get
> with any home router appliance.
>
WindRiver are pushing linux now anyway, so a netgear box will be just as
likely to be running linux as an old pc will be anyway.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
TONY RANDALL! Is YOUR life a PATIO of FUN??
Kelsey Bjarnason
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:54:50 +0000, Tim Smith wrote:
> However, you can also consider taking the small old PC beyond just being a
> gateway.
Rest of a great post snipped.
And people wonder why we love Linux.
Ray Ingles
> What if any, is the advantage of using a small old pc as a linux
> wireless gateway rather than using a small dedicated netgear box which
> costs about 60 euro and consumes considerably less power?
For simple networks, there isn't much benefit. For more complex
setups, it's a big advantage. For example, my IPCop box has four NICs,
and needs all four.
1. The "red" NIC, which connects to the cablemodem.
2. The "green" NIC, which connects to my wired home network.
3. The "blue" NIC, which connects to my wireless AP/router.
4. The "orange" NIC, which connects to my externally-visible
webserver.
The green network gets maximum privileges (it can initiate connections
to anywhere) but also maximum protection (nobody else can initiate
connections to machines on green). The blue network can talk to the red
(internet) connection, but not elsewhere. Machines on the orange net
can't initiate connections to *anybody*.
If, by some miracle, someone managed to subvert my webserver (and
that'd take quite a bit more effort than it's worth) they wouldn't be
able to use it for much. They could deface the web pages but couldn't
use it to connect to the outside world to try to break into other
systems, or as part of a DOS attack.
If some driveby attacker managed to hook up to my wireless network
(difficult due to physical placement, but theoretically possible), they
might be able to attack my laptop but not my wired desktops.
I'm not aware of a cheapo WAP that can handle this sort of setup. At
most, you can designate a machine to receive internet traffic so you can
run a webserver. But that machine isn't isolated from the rest of the
network, if someone breaks in they can use it as a base to attack the
rest of your systems.
I'm barely scratching the surface of what this thing can do, really.
Essentially anything that a complex, expensive high-end router can do,
this thing can do. I'm planning on setting up some URL filtering (like
Dan's Guardian) when our boys get a little older, for example.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
Isn't it funny how Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blame the
actions of fanatical religious zealots on 'secular' groups?
Linonut
>> I bought a Linksys wireless router. It worked 15 minutes, then died. I
>> returned it from whence I bought it and exchanged it for a D-Link one.
>> D-Link works fine. I will pro'ly never buy Linksys again.
>
> it wouldn't have been a WRT54g or a WRK54g would it? These models both have
> fucked firmware, I've had both models, and will never go back to Linksys. I
> now run on a noname Chinese router that's solid as a rock and runs on
> Linux.
The only problem I've had is a Linksys 8-port switch that would
occasionally lock up. Fixed by a reset.
Oh, also, an early cable/DSL router would occasionally crash, until I
upgraded the firmware.
Some Netgear troubles.
All in all, one might consider using a Linux box as a router where one
doesn't feel like trusting a *consumer* device.
--
Mayor Noche's Bomba Shelter. Where bad food and bad people go
together. Try our Sleepy Joe -- it's half dog-food, half downers.
Today's special -- red beans and reds.
-- The Firesign Theatre
Linonut
I hate to say this, as it is a slap as well as a kudo: it's nice to see
Hadron and Timmy talking intelligently (and with civility) for a change.
And you, too, for that matter.
Sorry about the unintended thread hijack.
--
I believe the technical term is "Oops!"
High Plains Thumper
> High Plains Thumper wrote:
>> Handover Phist wrote:
>>
>>> Actually I think he has a pretty valid point. I'm using
>>> an old (circa 1998) PC with Smoothwall, and it's been
>>> running practically non-stop for years. It's survived
>>> three moves and is more configurable than most of the
>>> router appliances I've seen, including those like the
>>> better Sonicwalls. Being OSS means you get tweaking
>>> rights too. I've seen two dead Linksys routers leave a
>>> friends house while mine has kept on truckin.
>>
>> I bought a Linksys wireless router. It worked 15 minutes,
>> then died. I returned it from whence I bought it and
>> exchanged it for a D-Link one. D-Link works fine. I will
>> pro'ly never buy Linksys again.
>
> I had a linksys wired router for several years, upgraded to
> a wireless a year or so ago. Not a lick of trouble from
> either one, 24x7x365
You must have been lucky. I gather these WRT54G routers have
been giving trouble, so they must have entered a bad lot from
one of the overseas factories.
I have noticed a good number of them on the clearance shelf,
so that must be an omen.
After seeing that and seeing others having problems on the
net, I figured I am better off with another manufacturer's,
and so the D-Link has been running "24x7x365".
--
HPT
Ian Hilliard
Let's add to that;
Put Apache, PHP and SquirrelMail onto the box, then create your own SSL key
and you can access you mail from anywhere in the world using a secure
connection from any browser.
Put spamassassin onto your postfix server and configure it to do source
testing to remove most of the spam before it goes into your account.
Get your own domain name, run Bind and keep your email addresses even when
you change ISP's.
Use sftp to do secure file transfers while you're out in the field. This way
you can do a drag and drop backup of your documents, while your out in the
field.
Run OpenVPN and a firewalled SMB Server so that you can make VPN'ed
connections into your accounting server and then print out the invoices
from anywhere in the world. Alternately, use the fax server to fax the
invoice complete with cover page directly to the client, while you sitting
in some airport lounge somewhere in the world.
Over OpenVPN you can also do secure audio and video communications using
GnomeMeeting and/or Netmeeting.
Set up the internal network into two virtual networks, one network is
protected and uses a squid server with filtering for the children, and the
other has full access to the outside world.
For people like me, who are out around the world most of the time, Linux
makes the perfect access to the office, while out of the office.
Ian
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:43:13 +0000 (UTC),
High Plains Thumper <h...@singlecylinderbikes.com> wrote:
I think the key may be keeping them cool. They seem to run hot (at
least, the ones I had did) but I have the current one in a well
ventilated spot.
I have used Dlinks also, no complaints there. Although like the linksys,
the ones I had were Linux boxes under the hood :)
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
Instruction ends in the schoolroom -- but education
ends only with life. -- Publilius Syrus.
Tim Smith
> After takin' a swig o' grog, Kelsey Bjarnason belched out this bit o'
> wisdom:
> I hate to say this, as it is a slap as well as a kudo: it's nice to see
> Hadron and Timmy talking intelligently (and with civility) for a change.
> And you, too, for that matter.
>
> Sorry about the unintended thread hijack.
I've come to realize that there are two ways to deal with people who are
reasonably bright and unreasonably obnoxious. (1) Be obnoxious back, or (2)
see it as a charming eccentricity. I've attempting now to see Kelsey as
charmingly eccentric. :-)
--
--Tim Smith
Kelsey Bjarnason
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 06:42:37 -0500, Linonut wrote:
>> And people wonder why we love Linux.
>
> I hate to say this, as it is a slap as well as a kudo: it's nice to see
> Hadron and Timmy talking intelligently (and with civility) for a change.
> And you, too, for that matter.
>
> Sorry about the unintended thread hijack.
Dunno what their issue is. Mine's simple: when someone shows up and
decides to be a terminal bonehead, I'll treat him as such. So far the
major target of that doesn't seem to have done much to change my opinion
of him.
Tim Smith
> The only problem I've had is a Linksys 8-port switch that would
> occasionally lock up. Fixed by a reset.
Next time it happens, before trying the reset, see if blowing in the vents
helps. (Or try directing a fan to blow on it, if you don't want to blow by
mouth). These things are sometimes quite sensitive to overheating.
--
--Tim Smith
Hadron Quark
> In article <5-mdndAIe763yHnZ...@comcast.com>, Linonut wrote:
>> The only problem I've had is a Linksys 8-port switch that would
>> occasionally lock up. Fixed by a reset.
>
> (Or try directing a fan to blow on it, if you don't want to blow by
> mouth).
Would you care to rephrase that?
David Culler
> The flexibility of IPtables is way above and beyond what you will get
> with any home router appliance.
What inferior mechanism do you suppose those home router appliances use ?
Hadron Quark
I noticed he disappeared when I asked "why".
Its very usual for blowhards to throw out buzzwords with little or no
factual backup. As it is, I know about IP-Tables but have never done
anything with them. a 60$ router has kept me safe & sound for a few
years : I have niether the time nor the inclination to learn the black
art of netfilter's iptables command.
Kelsey Bjarnason
They may in fact use iptables. However, having used several of them, I've
yet to find one that actually exposes the full power of iptables.