Linux Floppy Router

[Engineer]

Hey everyone I just set up my old 266 box as a Linux Router using Coyote Linux.

I am using this because I am still pretty new at configuring and this was pretty simple to do.

I was just wondering what you all thought about Coyote. I am also looking to try FrazierWall and FREESCO. Just looking for some feedback.

Thanks Dj

[Void Main]

I've heard a lot of people talk about FREESCO but I have not used it. I've always used Red Hat for my firewalls. My current one is Red Hat 8.0 on a P100 w/128MB. The nice thing about FREESCO (and some of the others) as you know is you don't even need a hard drive installed. I think about the only complaint is the limited number of network cards that are supported. That's only what I've heard, don't know if it's really true.

Now those floppy based firewalls are perfect if you only want a basic firewall but if you want the machine to be more than a basic firewall then I would think you would be somewhat limited. Obviously security wise it is best to have a standalone dedicated firewall.

[Engineer]

Yea, I didn't need a hard drive for mine but I don't like the fact that it runs off the floppy. I just installed it as a temp kinda thing because our other one had a huge lag, it took like 10-15 seconds before the telnet prompt was fully up for me to get to my school email account, and there was also a high lag for ftp executions which are ok now. I just wanted something temporary while I figured out the "real deal" haven't had time to google yet to find any how-tos for newbs or anything for redhat. Thanks for replying

Dj

[Void Main]

Those "lags" could be due to DNS resolution and not connection problems. Once you do get connected is there still a lag? If not then I'll bet you have a DNS issue on your telnet/ftp server where it's trying to reverse lookup your address before giving you a login prompt. Once you do get logged in do a "who -l". If it shows you being logged in from an IP address rather than a name try adding that IP address to the /etc/hosts on the server and then try and log in again and see if it's faster.

If this is a firewall for your school you might also want to consider something like a Netscreen hardware firewall. I'm a big fan of the Netscreen devices but they are not free/cheap.

[Engineer]

The lag was when we were using the router/hub (cheap one only like $35 from a friend). I have no lag using the floppy router, well not noticeable anyway.

Dj