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At 04:25 PM 7/08/01 +0800, Steve Grasso wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>On Monday 06 August 2001 11:01,
Nathan D wrote:<br>
<snip><br>
> My next step now is to have a login/mail/games/etc server for my
little<br>
> network. From what I have read E-smith seems to be a popular
"already<br>
> rolled" solution. Any comments on pros and
cons?<br><br>
Some Pros:<br><br>
- Pretty easy to install and configure<br>
- Defaults are sane<br>
- Good doco and mailing-list support, paid support available if you need
it<br>
- Has all the services most SOHO users will need available straight out
of <br>
the box with minimal need for fiddling (DHCP, Samba, Netatalk, <br>
packet-filtering firewall/gateway, proxy services etc etc)<br>
- Web-based or shell-based admin<br>
- Pretty much self-healing<br><br>
Some Cons:<br><br>
- Integrating Non-Standard (TM) stuff with the e-smith distro is not as
<br>
straight forward as for other distros</blockquote><br>
but can be tweaked by hand given enough time/knowledge/rtfm'ing I
hope?<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>> Some documentation I have read
refers to having a network setup so all<br>
> traffic travels in/out of the firewall, then thru the server, and
then to<br>
> the rest of the internal network. Is such a requirement
necessary for a<br>
> small home network?<br><br>
Nope. The e-smith machine will act as gateway and file/print/email/etc
server <br>
if that's what you want and the machine specs allow
it.</blockquote><br>
I plan to carry on with my old P75 as the SmoothWall box then see if I
can breathe some life into a IBM/Cyrix 200 chip for the server.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>> I am setting up a machine for
my son and am wondering about some sort of<br>
> internet access control ie certain times only, or being able to
isolate if<br>
> required? <br><br>
Use cron to pull the PPP or PPPOE link up/down at the times
required.</blockquote>What I actually meant was being able to isolate
internal IP's from the internet (without resorting to popping leads out
of the hub) ie kiddie control/punishment? <evil snicker><br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Presumably I would have to use the
firewall -> server -> network<br>
> setup as mentioned above to have this control?<br><br>
Nope. See above.</blockquote>I'm not aware of the above controls being
built in SmoothWall (keenly waiting the new version) which is why I
ask. Not sure if Samba could do this or some other server
tool/program is available?<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
regards,<br>
Nathan<br><br>
<font size=2>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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. natdan@pobox.com .
/ \<br>
. Western Australia . -> \_,-._/<br>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
v<br>
ICQ - 778269
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