Capabilities of older hardware (was Re: [plug] Mandrake 9.1)

[Scott Middleton]

The DSL Modem is connected to my switch as is the Laptop and my other
computers.
I don't use the Wireless all that much and as i understand it, it takes
quite a while to crack WEP especially if I rotate the WEP key.

On Fri, 2003-05-09 at 15:53, Craig Ringer wrote:
    > PCMCIA Wireless Card and 10 NIC
    > 512/128 PPPoE
    
    You have DSL, right - how are you getting by w/o 2 NICs. Do you not have 
    a wired LAN at all, just run with only 802.11b? (*shudders* at security 
    implications of that unless you have ipsec going internally)
    
    I'm going to have to replace my firewall soon because its only got 2 PCI 
    slots, and I can't find a dual-port NIC for a decent price. I need 3 NICs:
    	eth0: lan
    	eth1: inet
    	eth2: 802.11b
    
    where the firewall routes between the 802.11b and wired ethernet 
    networks, doing MAC address checking, possibly requiring IPsec, etc. I 
    don't trust 802.11b one tiny bit, and I sure don't want to give 
    unrestricted wireless access to my main LAN to anybody driving past.
    
    > Actually old Laptops are very handy.
    
    But very, very limited. Can't drop in a PCI card or two - which is why 
    I'm not using my Gateway Solo 5150 ( PII/300, 64mb RAM ) as a firewall 
    right now.
    
    Then again, my firewall is an old DEC box a friend gave me. It had a 
    P200 in it, and we clocked it down to 166Mhz then replaced the fan with 
    a big heatsink from an IBM P100 (which run fanless). The PSU fan is near 
    silent - the loudest part is the HDD and that's ridiculously quiet, its 
    a 30gig Western Digital 5400rpm job.
    
    > Cheap Wireless cards, sort of built-in UPS(battery). Got my modem hooked
    > up to it and one day I'll get around to making it into answering machine
    > as well.
    > All running Vanilla Debian Woody.
    
    ... like 90% of the linux firewalls on the planet, I suspect.
    
    
-- 
Scott Middleton
Linux Information Technology
www.linuxit.com.au
scott at linuxit.com.au
(08) 9331 8051