Re: [SLUG] Older i386 looking for buff firewall. Must know how to handle bad packets...

[Brock Henry <bhenry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:42 28/11/2000 +1100, you wrote:


> Hello World,
>
> Ive got an old 386 machine - an SX I suspect thought I dont know for sure 
> - with
> 4meg ram, 20mge hdd, 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives, ega & 8-bit soundblaster
> card. I want to make this machine into a firewall for an up-coming cable 
> or adsl
> connection. It doesnt have to run any web proxy or mail server or squid 
> cache -
> just firewall between outside and inside.
>
> 1. Now, can you make a linux install on a 20mg drive on a 386 which will do
> this? - and what distro is best suited for this?

Could be done I suspect, probably best checking out one of the "linux on a 
floppy" distros, cLinux and LOAF are two I can think of. There are heaps of 
these things out there. Fitting a real distro on 20 meg would be hard if 
not impossible.

> 2. What networking cards should I get? (ISA? PCI? - assuming there are enough
> slots for each...)

386 wouldn't have PCI yet. Only ISA.

> 3. Where can I get these cards from?

Any computer store :)

> 4. Will doing this increase my Internet latency much if at all?

Negligible I'd think.

> 5. Since the box doesnt have a cd-rom drive - would it be best to install off
> floppies or do a network install?

For full distro network install, but see question number 1.

> 6. Is there anything else I will need that I havent mentioned?

*shrug*

Brock Henry

***********************************************************************

Brock Henry - brockh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (H) - bhenry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (W)

Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things.
*************************************************************************