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| Thread ID: 30147 | 2003-02-11 20:43:00 | SmoothWall | Susan B (19) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 120319 | 2003-02-11 20:43:00 | My old 486-DX2-50MHz with 20MB RAM and 1.2GB HDD is sitting in a box sulking because it has nothing to do. Because I feel sorry for the poor old faithful thing I am thinking of having a go at installing SmoothWall on it and giving it a new lease of life. The only trouble is that I am a lazy cow and I don't want to expend masses of energy and stress learning something completely new that ends up corrupting the cosy setup that I currently have. I have read the SmoothWall FAQ (and will read the installation documents soon) which make it sound easy enough, but is it?? I have absolutely NO experience with Linux. The SmoothWall will be connected to two computers, one with Win XP Home and the other Win 98 which are networked with ICS running sweetly right now (touchwood). Before I get too carried away I'd like to know if the old girl (the PC, not me) is capable of the job. It has never had a modem and since it is all packed away I can't (be bothered to) get it out to have a look to see whether my external Dynalink e-modem can be physically "installed" on it. If it can't then that's the end of the project, so would anyone have any idea if it can? If it passes the modem test the next thing to check is whether my old network card can be fitted. It is a 10Mbps card - will this will be sufficient for this purpose? The network cards in the other two computers are 10/100Mbps so I don't want the old one slowing everything down. My logic tells me that since it is only dealing with internet traffic it will be fine; am I right? Gets Yellow Pages book out to make appointment with a shrink. |
Susan B (19) | ||
| 120320 | 2003-02-11 22:12:00 | What about this: www.angelfire.com And then if it has no firewall you try installing one? |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 120321 | 2003-02-11 22:19:00 | Did the dx2-50 even come with PCI? I don't know if it was around then. In that case the m/board will only have ISA which probably means your LAN card won't go in. Your external modem would have to connect through the serial port using an RS232 cable (or something like that) | roofus (483) | ||
| 120322 | 2003-02-11 22:23:00 | I have a DX 50 that Ive leant to my granny and it as one PCI port in it. I gave CyberChuck a 10/100MBPS ISA card a month or two back, so you can get them, but 10MBPS should be fine, expecially if its just for Net surfing, be it Cable or Dial-Up! |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 120323 | 2003-02-11 22:39:00 | I haven't used Smoothwall myself but I know plenty that will never stop using it. From what I can gather it is a Linux based firewall appliance. Doesn't mean you have to go and learn linux just to be able to use it. Apparently it's all rather straight forward. Give it a go.. and yeah the modem should work as should the NIC if they're both ISA or what not. |
-=JM=- (16) | ||
| 120324 | 2003-02-12 04:06:00 | A 50 MHz will do it . A DX2-66 would be a bit better because the 50 has the bus running at 25 MHz rather than 33 MHz, but it probably won't matter . The external modem will connect to a serial port . A 486 box will have two serial ports, and even if you plug a mouse in, there will be one for the modem . It should have 16550A uarts too, which will help . The 10 MHz Ethernet card will probably be ISA . The bus will be ISA . If you connect to the others with a 10/100 switch they can talk at 100, and use 10MHz only when talking to the Internet through the server . Go for it . You will probably find you can unplug the monitor and keyboard after you have it set up . Have a look at the February Silicon Chip magazine (the CP Library have it) for an article about some tricks for having a "headless" Linux box . Go for it . |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 120325 | 2003-02-12 04:58:00 | I'm also wanting to get Smoothwall, but I don't know if I'll be able to get jetstream working on it. Does anybody know if it will work? Cheers, Jonathan |
JoGiles (1898) | ||
| 120326 | 2003-02-12 05:03:00 | Thank you for the replies. I will have to sweet-talk HWMO into getting all the bits down from the loft again before I can have a decent look at things but it sounds promising. :-) I have downloaded SmoothWall and read the installation instructions; all I can hope for is that it is as easy as they make out but on the old computer there is nothing to lose. It is the other two I am worried about -- remember the networking fiasco? :p :D |
Susan B (19) | ||
| 120327 | 2003-02-12 05:42:00 | It prefers external modems. It will use an Alcatel Stingray (USB) quite happily though. Realtek NICs are all that it needs. |
-=JM=- (16) | ||
| 120328 | 2003-02-12 07:20:00 | Susan, With it being an old PC it most likely won't boot from the CD. In the dos utilities there is a program called rawrite that will allow you to make a boot floppy. After that it is pretty straight forward to setup. Just the usual IP addresses etc. You will only need to set it up as a green and red with modem for connection. Hopefully you downloaded the GPL 1.0 version rather than the 0.9.9 as this requires quite a few patches to be installed and 1.0 has yet to have any. Once smoothwall is installed you complete the set-up with administrator password from one of your other PC's browsers. You can also run a proxy and all you need to do is enter the IP address of the smoothwall in the proxy settings of your browser. If you don't want "others" altering your settings on the smoothwall machine you can set a dial user password. After that it's all reasonably plain sailing. The only problem I have encountered is an occasional delay in accessing the web due to DNS, but......... |
Gorela (901) | ||
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