Very Computer

Any body had experience of both a standalone router (eg d-link/linksys 4port
switch and router integrated into 1 box) Vs old 486 with a flavour of linux
acting as a router with a hub/switch to share a DSL connection?

You can get the former for about 50GBP and it seams a lot less of a pain to
set up and use.

Comments?

Cheers
Stu

Ask yourself this ... what if linksys go out of business ?

How good is the firewall in the Linksys? You need it badly for your
windows box.
Otherwise, if you don't need extra services from that box, take the
Linksys. Linux as a router/firewall is fairly easy to setup, but if you
do not need more than the router/basic firewall functionality, the
Linksys is easier and uses less energy. It is quieter also

--
Perl - the only language that looks the same before and after RSA
encryption.
    -- Keith Bostic

Quote:> Ask yourself this ... what if linksys go out of business ?

Buy a dLink model?

stu

Quote:> It is quieter also

yip, and it does not use as much electricity!

stu

Have used both, each has their place.

I actually prefer the D-Link DI-604 over the Linksys, but either box
works well. Very low-power, very simple, perfect for simple home LAN.
The D-Link has faster performance than the Linksys.

HOWEVER, neither is very powerful and cannot route fast enough to
keep up with anything much more than your basic 256K downstream ADSL.
Even your ancient 486 can route full ethernet speeds.
If you have a higher-speed DSL or T1 or something it will bottleneck.
Also, port forwarding and other goodies are very basic. The D-Link
calls it "virtual servers" and the table can only have like 8 entries.

Again, appliances are cheap and simple. If you want to do much
of anything fancy though you will need a Linux router.

--
  There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness". -unknown

Or any of half-a-dozen similar hardware routers.

Even if it goes out of business, you still have the router.

As to firewalling. The router uses network address translation and
blocks all external requesters unless you instruct it to pass through
requesters addressing specific ports and then only to the box speified
by you.

If that is not enough, set up firewalling on the boxes behind the
router.

Perhaps, but you won't get a state-full firewall and state of the art routing
facilities.

Michael Heiming
--
Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM

Could you explain how this routing performce problem would manifest
itself? I ask because I have a very fast cable connect (4Mbps, really!)
and I don't see any speed degradation with my Linksys router. I'd switch
back to my Linux router if I thought I'd getter better performance.

BTW, I switced away from my Linux router when it was rooted via a buggy
OpenSSHD while I was on vacation and couldn't respond to the security
update.

thanks

: Perhaps, but you won't get a state-full firewall

It's statefull (eg, behaviors wrt FTP if mere connection tracking isn't
enough foryou), just not programable to look at arbitrary state with
arbitrary predicates.

: and state of the art routing facilities.

In the intended application, I don't see any reason whatsoever to pay
for "advanced routing facilities" beyond the obvious "pass it along to
the ISP with NATing".  I mean...  what ELSE were you going to do with it
in the given application?  What momentous complicated decisions are
there to make about how to route the packets?

Do you get the source of whatever OS the box is running? Is it able to
log using usual remote sysloging.

Quote:> : and state of the art routing facilities.
> In the intended application, I don't see any reason whatsoever to pay
> for "advanced routing facilities" beyond the obvious "pass it along to
> the ISP with NATing".  I mean...  what ELSE were you going to do with it
> in the given application?  What momentous complicated decisions are
> there to make about how to route the packets?

Reading this newsgroup, with question like "Need help setting up shaping/tc"
every other day, I'm not sure if this is true, for some perhaps for others
not, the OP has to decide.

Michael Heiming
--
Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM

*snip*

Quote:>Could you explain how this routing performce problem would manifest
>itself? I ask because I have a very fast cable connect (4Mbps, really!)
>and I don't see any speed degradation with my Linksys router. I'd switch
>back to my Linux router if I thought I'd getter better performance.

Hmmm, I had one on a 10 Mbit ethernet here at work a while ago and
tried to push an FTP transfer through as fast as possible and it
didn't get much past 2-3 Mbps in measured throughput. Perhaps it's
gotten better with new firmware.

--
  There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness". -unknown

Both devices can be used for the proposed tasks, yet the HW router
is a lot less hassle to setup and maintain, especially for a newcomer
to Linux and/or networking IMHO. If you don't know exactly about possible
loopholes and security risks, the setting up a real secure server is
not the most easy task. Decent HW routers usually do incorporate
state-ful packet inspection, NAT etc, which are essential functions
for any server of that kind, be it a HW router or a computer system.

Another good reason for the HW solution: These routers don't make
much noise. :-)

(Yes, I've been using a DSL router for exactly these tasks for
over a year now with great success.)

Michael
--

          Lumber Cartel Unit #456 (TINLC) & Official Netscum
    Note: If you want me to send you email, don't munge your address.

Quote:> Any body had experience of both a standalone router (eg d-link/linksys
4port
> switch and router integrated into 1 box) Vs old 486 with a flavour of
linux
> acting as a router with a hub/switch to share a DSL connection?

If all you need is NAT the cheap routers are fine.  If you go with a Linux
box you can use it for many other services as well.  The distribution
from http://www.e-smith.org is very easy to install and gives you
file/print/dns/email/web/ftp/appletalk services along with nat/dhcp.

--
  Les Mikesell

Just bought a Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL Router BEFSR41 50GBP.  NAT with
basic port forward and dchp is all I really need.  I thought NAT as a
firewall was pretty good.  Should I be using a software firewall FW on each
PC too?

I will keep the P75 with Linux on to play/learn on.

Cheers
Stu