Building a Linux Router

[Floppyman]

Hi all,

I'm interested in building a Linux Router. Can anyone tell me the minimum specs I would need? Would a 486 be ok or should I go with a lower Pentium? Also what software should I use, i.e. what linux distro? Are there any good guides out there I can read, on configuring and building? Thanks in Advance.

[DrZaius]

From my "Linux Router" Favorites folder...

http://www.linuxrouter.org/ (distro)
http://www.coyotelinux.com/ (distro)
http://www.viperlair.com/articles/so...lnx_fw_1.shtml (how-to)
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupda...503199,00.html (how-to)
http://www.clarkconnect.org/ (best distro)

Hope that helps.

[Floppyman]

Thanks Dr.,

What makes the last link you posted the best distro? Have you build one before? Thanks again.

[Xayd]

I used a 486-DX100 for a router for about six months, 24 megs of RAM. Used Coyote, and 2 3com 509 nics.

Worked like a charm, ran for months with no problems and no reboots.

[DrZaius]

The last one (ClarkConnect) is the easiest to use/setup from my own experience.

[Floppyman]

Thanks guys. Which distro is most secure, and allows for the most tweaking? Thanks again.

[Xayd]

They're all pretty similar, with variations on what they chose to leave out in support of "features".

For instance Freesco has a nice web-admin utility with a minimal webserver to host it on, but at the expense of not having enough room left for PPPoE support.

Coyote is the opposite, it handles PPPoE/PPPoA but that takes up too much space to fit their web-admin interface, you have to run it from a hard drive to have both or admin thru telnet and lose the web-admin.

All of them will have the same "basic" functionality of any standalone router

1) DHCP server and client
2) port forwarding (unlimited, not limited to 10-20 ports or ranges like most routers)
3) Basic firewall allowing you to block traffic entirely from certain hosts, through certain ports, etc.
4) Traffic logging, dumpable to any location local or remote that can run a syslog daemon.

Some support VPN, some have web based admin, some support PPPoE, some only support DHCP and static IPs, some have the ability to employ a modem as a backup connection, some have dynip service scripts built in, some keep sendmail in so you can set up scripts to email yourself IP changes and logs if you choose to, some have taken that functionality out to squeeze in something else instead, etc. etc. etc.

Kinda just have to read through the feature lists on them to see what they all can do, that's why there are so many of them really. Each has a specific set of features that the person or persons who maintain the package wanted in it, and the reason they made their own was to do something different than the others .

[Floppyman]

Thanks for the reply Xayd. If I were to run a linux server on this network as well (just a fileserver), can I use this server and set it up as a firewall as well, as opposed to having both a server and separate system for the firewall? If it works both ways, what are the pros and cons of each? Thanks again.

[Xayd]

If you have a linux machine already there's no reason to add another just as a router, the one can do both.

The reason for the floppy distros is to be a cheapo router for someone who has the 486 laying around already, not really feasible to have 2 nix machines to do the jobs that one can do on its own.

IP Masquerading is how it's done, here's the how-to.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquerade-HOWTO/