# setting up a gentoo based home network

## BennyP

I'll be moving into my new home soon, and I want to network the computers with gentoo. I know a place in the suburbs that sells 200mhz/32mb/1-2g machines for insanely cheap so i'm going to pick one up and load it full of NICS to use as a gentoo based broadband router.

As of right now I have 3 boxes in my house:

1) P1 200/32MB/2G oldskool box that belongs to my mom with one One PCI/ISA slot (NIC right now) and another ISA slot

2) cele 800/128MB/40G machine that my sister owns that has enough PCI slots and onboard ethernet

3)  my P3 800/128MB/30+60G with one NIC in it now

I also have a 4 gig drive lying about that may or may not work.

What I want to know is:

Where can I learn more about Lin<->Win & and Lin<-> Lin networking? (Specifically regarding Gentoo my distro of choice  :Very Happy: )

How economical (and easy to set up) is wireless?

What suggestions do you all have as to what I could do with the router box besides just having it be a router?

I'll probably put my box and the router in the basement den (beside my bedroom) and link them up to my mom's and sis' machines upstairs.

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## Marajin

200Mhz/32meg/1-2g machines aren't worth anything.... I can build 2Ghz, 256meg DDR, 60G  boxes for change outta 300 bucks... 200Mhz boxes pale in comparison...Also 32meg is too lacking for Gentoo. Building Gentoo with those specs is asking for failure or at best an insanely long time to install. If you expect to have a linux router on such lower specs,  you may be better looking at something like smoothwall (http://www.smoothwall.org).

As to your questions:

 *Quote:*   

>  Where can I learn more about Lin<->Win & and Lin<-> Lin networking? (Specifically regarding Gentoo my distro of choice )  

 

You're in the right place for that.

 *Quote:*   

>  How economical (and easy to set up) is wireless? 

 

40 bucks per card, about 90 bucks for a WAP (If you want to plug it into a pre-existing hardwired network. Will happily cover a house (Unless you own a mansion). I use it without worries. I have linux wireless working sweetly with 128bit WEP so..

As for easy to set up... With windows it's simple...With linux it's simplish... (As long as you get the drivers loaded and the iwconfig command working you're sorted)

 *Quote:*   

>  What suggestions do you all have as to what I could do with the router box besides just having it be a router? 

 

Personally I see very little hope for it doing more than be a firewall/router box. You could run a DHCP server off it for your internal network and a DNS proxy if you wanted. You could add a webserver if you really wanted.....[/quote]

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## BennyP

i dont have 300 bucks to shell out though, 

check out these prices: http://www.maxiumwarehousedirect.com

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## Marajin

Nor do I,

I was just trying to make the point that systems many times more powerful are now relatively cheap, therefore ones like that are bound to be rediculously cheap as they are effectively worthless unless you're a nerd who uses old comps to do stuff just cause you can..... (or you need a cheap router box).

Anyway, I reiterate, 32meg boxes are a bad idea for Gentoo really.

As for those prices, the higher end of them is way off. Like I said, I could build a 2Ghz box with 256meg for a pitance more than they're asking for a 500 with 64.

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## M104

Hey, I was in the same boat, sorta...  Plenty of hardware with not a lot of cash.  I've got four boxes right now:

900 MHz / 256 MB / 80 GB

233 MHz / 160 MB / 4 GB

200 MHz / 32 MB / 2 GB / 2 NICs

200 MHz / 32 MB / 2 GB

Installing barebones Gentoo setups on the bottom three has left me very impressed with Linux.  (The top box is my Gentoo workstation/desktop.)  Don't listen to the naysayers, 32 MB is fine for an efficient Linux system.  Just make sure it's got some swap space and monitor it's performance until you are comfortable.  As an added benefit, it will be a lot quieter, and (in my experience) more reliable than anything with a 2 GHz CPU.

More to the point, for networking info I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a Linux server guide.  The book I have is a bit out of date for some things, though, so I would recomend looking yourself.  These books are expensive, but you can browse the book for the info you need and look the rest up online. The Linux Documentation Project is a great place to start.  Google for Linux is another great resource.

Use wireless networking if you have a laptop that always moves around.  Otherwise, it's an expensive convenience.

As for your router box, what services do you need?  Are you interested in only learning, or do you plan on actually using network services?  The difference is that you probably shouldn't mess with the router box if you don't really need the services.  My barebones recomendations for your box are:

1)  SSH server -- so you don't need an extra keyboard and mouse.

2)  DHCP server -- so it's easier for the client computers to connect to your network.

3)  NAT/Firewall with iptables -- fast and lightweight

4)  SAMBA -- so you can share files and printers between Linux and Windows. (an extra hard drive will help)

That's pretty much all you need for a functioning Linux/Windows network. After that you can try running a DNS server, an NTP server, a mail server, a Web server, and a database server.  Those servers are nice to have if you're into that sort of thing, but don't do it just because you can.  Your box will be able to handle this just fine in either case, although the compile times may seem pretty long!  Hope this helps.

Cheers!

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## Diezel

You can build the system on another desktop with distcc. Search the forum for it. There has been a few posts about it.

I would personaly use some other distro for this. Building takes so freaking long. But you'll do as you want.

Debian might be a good choice for you router, but Gentoo is Gentoo ofcourse.

I use an 120Mhz Cyrix at home as a router,FW,Samba server, Apache and it runs them without probs. I have 64MB of memory tough. I think the 200MHz is sufficient for a home network. Were not talking about an Enterpirse network here  :Smile: 

Have fun with your project.   :Laughing: 

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## Marajin

 *Quote:*   

>  Don't listen to the naysayers, 32 MB is fine for an efficient Linux system. Just make sure it's got some swap space and monitor it's performance until you are comfortable.  

 

I'm going off the Gentoo install guide.

And I run smoothwall linux on 8meg of PC66 SDRAM  :Wink:  So yeah, if you do it right you can run off practically nothing. I did run my server off a P-166 with 32 meg for a while.....but that was a Mandrake precompiled system with unnecessary stuff stripped out..

I must say I've become a bit liberal with my hardware nowadays, my server being the 1.2Ghz thing mentioned in my sig, and my two workstations being the other two mentioned. I also have a 1Ghz Celeron laptop hanging around with Gentoo 1.4RC2 on it IIRC, but it's painfully slow ...I think something is wrong with it since even Gentoo limps on it. You should see something like Windows XP or even Longhorn running on it....  painful! 

 *Quote:*   

>  As an added benefit, it will be a lot quieter, and (in my experience) more reliable than anything with a 2 GHz CPU. 

 

Although generally true... if you DIY, you can end up with fairly powerful boxes making virtually no noise. My 2.4Ghz P4 (which is actually a laptop...) only activates its' fans about once every hour, for a minute or two, and then the air coming out can hardly be called more than slightly heated...

And to be frank, anything with a fan is gonna make noise. Not because it has to, but because the manufacturers are too cheap to actually use the quiet fans. I know of fans that are many times more powerful than the ones commonly used in a PC and yet they make less noise than your average powerpack will make (You know the buzz noise from the electric?).

Reliability? Hrm, my 1.2Ghz Athlon server can go blow for blow with my P-133 and P-120 computers. Many months of uptime, usually downtime is caused by a powercut or something. I bought it when it was /the/ best you could get, which must have been at least 2 years ago, and in that time downtime has been caused by powerfailure (twice), harddrive failure (once), and the PSU fan failed a week later. But the hardware itself has been fairly rock solid...

I guess I may have been lucky, or you have been unlucky, who knows. In general PCs are unreliable cause they're "cheap" hardware. But you can pretty much get 6+ months out of a PC. In some cases you'd  best  a year or so.

Anyway, I'll take your saying so as proof in the future, since you run gentoo boxes on 32meg... Like I said, I'm just going from the Gentoo install guide which says using /64 meg/ was a tad slow and crazy...

although it was a 486 CPU too  :Twisted Evil: 

Anyhow, don't really let me disuade you! Go for it!

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## fatcat.00

I have a Celeron 433 w/128MB running my Gentoo firewall.  I am also running DHCP and DNS on it, listening only on the inside interface, so sorry hackers  :Razz: 

I have only two interfaces in the box right now, but am probably going to add a third so I can run a DMZ.  I want to host a web server and DNS server for my domains eventually.

I think 32MB is too tight to run a Gentoo box...yes it runs perfectly well, but compiling apps is PAINFUL!.  Spring for more RAM, you will be happier in the long run.  RAM is soooo cheap anyway.

On the wireless thing, call me paranoid but most 802.11b WAPs are ridiculously simple to crack, and the traffic is even simpler to sniff.  I don't even want to mention wardriving...

Get a WAP with some decent security features if you can.  You might pay a little more, but to me its worth it.

Good Luck!

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## Marajin

I have a WAP that's 802.11g compat but I'm running on 802.11b at the moment...

I'm using 128bit WEP but that's about it. However in my local area most people don't even know how to turn a computer on, let alone even contemplate sniffing traffic or cracking into my WAP

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## uzik

 *BennyP wrote:*   

> I'll be moving into my new home soon, and I want to network the computers with gentoo. I know a place in the suburbs that sells 200mhz/32mb/1-2g machines for insanely cheap so i'm going to pick one up and load it full of NICS to use as a gentoo based broadband router.
> 
> As of right now I have 3 boxes in my house:
> 
> 1) P1 200/32MB/2G oldskool box that belongs to my mom with one One PCI/ISA slot (NIC right now) and another ISA slot
> ...

 

Wireless was pretty good for a friend. He bought a linksys

for his dsl and likes it.

for my NAT box I use a junky pentium 2 133 mhz machine

with 32 meg of ram and the menu driven software from

www.freesco.org. I use it with a cable modem. This box

can also be a dial up server and print server for your

network if you choose.

for my web server I use gentoo and I installed Samba so

my wife could access the web site html files from her windows

box.

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## quag7

I would note that there are a lot of options for cheap boxes on ebay.  I was able to get a P2-400 box with a 6 gig SCSI hard drive, 192 MB of RAM, 16 MB S3 Video and onboard sound for $100 + $25 shipping.  And this is a Compaq Deskpro, the sort of sturdy corporate model.  I have FreeBSD on it now, but you could definitely run Gentoo nicely on that even as a desktop, never mind a router.  But even for a router, that's cheap.

This box was sold as part of a large lot from a big corporation that went bankrupt.  There are also certified refurbished systems and the like on ebay.  I suppose you're taking some kind of risk with ebay, but a lot of vendors who auction a lot of their equipment give at least a nominal DOA warranty of 7-30 days, which is usually enough to figure out if everything works.  The box has been running okay now for 29 days without a reboot, since I first installed things.

It's worth looking into.

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## tdb

Watch what wireless cards you get for linuix. A lot of the cheaper ones (particulary those that have a "+" or "ver.2" after the model number) are a bitch to set up with linux. Some don't have drivers at all. do your homework, find a card that has a Prism chipset in it. They'll be more expensive, but they are usually supported out-of-the-box.

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## rajl

Perhaps the obvious question if you're strapped for cash is, why not buy a linksys broadband router?  CompUSA, Office Depot, OfficeMax, etc all sell them for around 25 bucks with rebate.  They're small, quiet, effiecent, do dhcp serving for the computers attached to them, do nat and port forwarding for you, have a web based administrative interface that listens to the internal interface only, and allow you to install firewall software on them (usually zone-alarm, which is a pretty good firewall).  Best of all, it's quick and easy to setup.  Just plug it in and turn it on. 

Of course, if you have a strong DIY streak and time to burn, I guess gentoo is the only way to go.

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## Korean Ian

I would use another distro. I *think* it would take for ever to do a custom compiled install for a system that would only be used as a firewall/network server. 

Just my thoughts though.

KI

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## uzik

there are several distros already done.

Here's http://www.freesco.org a menu driven one that boots from a floppy

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## Hellzone

Well unless you live in canada as well maybe you should read the terms and conditions of http://www.maxiumwarehousedirect.com

 *Quote:*   

> All prices and specifications are valid in Canada only and subject to change without notice. Prices on this web site are subject to error. Final order amounts, including tax and shipping will be communicated following receipt of your online order. 

 

-James

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## billatq

I pulled a usb wireless nic out of the compusa bargain bin for $30 today. I'm actually surprised that it came with open source linux drivers (though that fact wasn't advertised on the box--I had to actually open it up and track down the manufacturer from the MAC address while still in the store.) It's probably not a bad deal if you just want basic wireless.

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